


Chasing Starlight

by seimaisin



Category: Bandom, My Chemical Romance
Genre: Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Amnesia, F/M, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-22
Updated: 2010-08-22
Packaged: 2017-10-11 05:09:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 32,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/108767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seimaisin/pseuds/seimaisin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Space opera AU!  Bob is a cargo pilot on a secret mission.  Mikey is an escaped prisoner with no memory of who he is or where he came from.  Together, they travel the galaxy in search of Mikey's identity ... but perhaps identity is less what you remember and more what you do when your back's against the wall.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [teaforbryony](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=teaforbryony).



> Once upon a time, a delusional writer said "oh, hey, I can totally write that idea in around 20,000 words or less, it'll be no problem!"
> 
> ... and then this happened.
> 
> This story turned out to be way more epic than I ever thought it would be. I had a hell of a time writing it - I only hope [](http://teaforbryony.livejournal.com/profile)[**teaforbryony**](http://teaforbryony.livejournal.com/) (for whom this was written, in the [](http://community.livejournal.com/drawn_to/profile)[**drawn_to**](http://community.livejournal.com/drawn_to/) holiday fic exchange) has as much fun reading it!

On Planet 265AL, the only spaceport worth the name was Genara. The city that bore the port's name covered half of the smaller continent, with the large, modern port facility taking up the northern third of the terraformed area. From space, the city looked like a three-tiered ice cream cone - lights and metal and the colorful spill of civilization dominating the wide northern space, with a dimmer version of the same occupying the larger portion of the middle. Down in the southern region, the only sign of terraformed life was the large fenced area that divided the habitable areas from those that could not sustain human life; the fencing came to a point somewhere about one hundred kilometers from the southern coast. But the only portion of Genara anyone who didn't live on 265AL cared about was the port, as Genara stood at the intersection of the Cyrus Lanes and the Barker Lanes. It was here that ships traveling one set of lanes docked to file the paperwork that allowed them to travel into another set. Thus it was a popular place for cargo to change hands.

Bob hated picking up cargo at Genara. True, it was usually an easy port; if things ran smoothly, all he had to do was land, hand over his cargo hold codes to the crew at the dock and go enjoy the complimentary overnight accommodations Apex Open Power provided for visiting pilots. At most other ports, he spent several hours breaking his back to load crates or barrels or occasionally motherfucking statues into his hold, and then had to either fly directly back out or pay money to sleep in a pest-infested rooming house. Here, he was treated like royalty.

Problem was, he knew where Apex's money came from. Given the choice, he'd rather sleep with the bed bugs than take any of their money.

But Gabe Saporta paid good money for the booze that Apex imported from the far end of the Barker Lanes. Apex owned Genara's spaceport, so this was the only place a pilot could pick up their inventory. Bob needed money - or, more accurately, Bob needed the money that Brian paid him, and Brian didn't pay him unless someone else paid him first. And, well, as long as he had to be here, he figured he might as well do something to ease his conscience. Every time he took the now-familiar path west of the port, he heard Brian's voice in his head. _"Goddamned bleeding hearts, all of you,"_ he'd said to Bob, Frank, and Jamia, on more than one occasion. _"I don't give a shit what you do as long as you don't get caught. And if you do get caught, don't mention my name. Do you hear me?"_ But, Brian also provided the barely-legal paperwork needed to complete their secondary missions at Genara, so Bob didn't listen to his bitching too much.

So today, as he had a dozen times before, he found himself walking through Genara's entertainment district, past the bars that promised patrons ear-splitting music or dancing naked people. His real destination lay on the outskirts of the district, close to the residential area that housed those who made their money laboring for those who ran the port and the entertainment district. He walked through streets that were much more narrow and dirty than the thoroughfares close to the port, but at least it was quieter, and no one accosted him in the street for his business. As he ducked through an alley, he smelled something fried and meaty and delicious coming from a block over. His stomach grumbled, but he was running late, thanks to a surprisingly incompetent cargo loading crew that had nearly managed to take off his cargo bay door. It wasn't fair to leave someone hanging just because he hadn't eaten in hours.

As he approached the safe house, he saw that all the windows were dark. Bob cursed under his breath. No light in the upstairs window meant that he was too late. Or that his contact hadn't managed to make it out in one piece. Either way, it was bad news. He didn't pause, didn't indicate that he'd taken particular notice of the house at all. He just shoved his hands in his pockets and turned the corner next to the house, through the alley that would take him past the house's back entrance. Maybe there'd be something back there. It was a long shot, but since he'd walked all the way out here, he might as well exhaust all options.

In the alley, he tripped over a body. Literally.

Bob's heart stopped for a moment, but then the body moved and groaned. Bob crouched down next to him. "Hey, buddy, are you okay?"

The man just groaned again. Bob put an arm around him and helped him to a sitting position. He was skinny, almost too skinny, and had light colored hair that was matted in clumps all over his head. He was so dirty that black soot came off on Bob's jacket, but Bob didn't see any visible injuries - except to his hands, when the man lifted them to touch his face. His hands and forearms were covered in angry red scratches and blue-black bruises. He rubbed his eyes, which made Bob wince. "Oh," the man muttered. Then, he looked up at Bob and immediately scrambled backwards.

"Hey! Hey, it's okay, I'm not going to hurt you." Bob stood up when the man stood up, but stayed still when the man pressed himself against the wall behind him. "What happened to you?"

"You're not one of them." It wasn't a question. The man's voice was scratchy, as if it hadn't been used in a while.

"No," Bob answered slowly. "What happened?"

The man ignored the question. "I have to get out of here. Before they get here. I have to go." He pushed a lock of filthy hair off of his forehead, and Bob saw a green mark on the back of his hand. A circle inside a triangle, with a character in a non-Standard language in the middle. "It's a brand," Frank had told him once, showing off the black version that was tattooed on his forearm. "Only people who work for them get the permanent one. They have a temporary green one they put on their ... corporate prisoners." Corporate prisoners, Bob had learned, was the polite slang for hostages.

Bob had not signed up to get involved with Apex's corporate hostage situations. He'd never heard of a hostage escaping Apex, quite frankly. But with a filthy, frightened man staring wide-eyed at him, he did the only thing he could do. "Come on," he said, gesturing down the alley. "We'll find some place to get you off the street."

The stranger hunched towards the wall, keeping his eyes on Bob. "I don't know. You could be with them. I don't remember ..."

Suddenly, Bob saw two people approaching the other end of the alley. They were dressed in identical black jumpsuits - the uniform of Apex's security force. They swung small personal search lights from one side to another, each covering a different side of the street. "Fuck," Bob muttered. If the safe house had been compromised, their entire operation was fucked.

Bob took off his jacket and quickly moved to the wall. The stranger tried to move, but he appeared to be weak, so Bob reached him easily before he scampered off. Bob wrapped the jacket around the man and put an arm around his waist. "Pretend to be drunk," he hissed. The man sagged against Bob - obeying the command, or just too weak or scared to walk, he didn't know. Either way, it worked. "Come on, man," he said in a voice loud enough to be heard, "can you at least make it back to the rooming house before you puke again?"

He only got a low moan in response, which worked no matter what the cause. Without looking back at the security guards, he propelled his new companion forward, back out of the alley and down the dark street Bob had just walked down.

Bob half-dragged the man for a block. Then, hearing the noise of a decent-sized crowd in one small tavern, he ducked inside, pulling the man with him. Inside, the stranger started to walk more on his own, though he didn't move to break away from Bob. Bob found them a small table in the back of the room. He tugged the chairs around to the sides of the table that would allow both of them to watch the door. He sat down, and after a moment, his companion did the same. He hunched over and refused to look at the server when she came to take their order. "Just a couple of ales," Bob said. "And two bowls of stew, if that's what I'm smelling."

The server nodded and disappeared into the crowd. Bob looked at his companion, who studied the table top. "What happened to you, man?" When he was met with silence, Bob rapped his knuckles on the table. The man looked up. His light-colored eyes were wide and still panicked. "I'm not going to hurt you," Bob repeated. "And I'm not going to give you up, either. If I'd meant to do that, I would have left you there."

The man looked down again, but a moment later, he muttered something. Bob leaned forward to hear him better. The man looked up again briefly; this time, his voice was loud enough for Bob to make out. "Thanks."

"What's your name?"

Another moment of silence, then- "Mikey."

"Hi, Mikey, I'm Bob." He paused when the server brought their food and drinks. Mikey dug into his stew with the enthusiasm of someone who hadn't eaten for far too long. Bob frowned. He took a bite of his own stew, then washed it down with a healthy gulp of ale. "Mikey," he said, to get his attention. When Mikey looked up, Bob pointed at him with his spoon. "How did you get there? To that house?"

Mikey swallowed his food. He looked up at Bob, and pushed his chair back from the table an inch or so. "I escaped," he muttered, low enough that Bob barely heard him.

"I know that." Bob gestured at Mikey's branded hand. Mike snatched his hand away and hid it in his lap. "How? And how did you know to go to that house?"

"I can't tell you that." Mikey looked furtively at the front of the tavern as the door opened, but the only people who entered were grimy men who obviously came straight from the mines outside of town.

Bob silently cursed, but kept his face neutral when Mikey looked back at him. "This is important, Mikey. I told you, I'm not out to hurt you or anything. I just need to know who told you about that house."

After a moment, Mikey looked away. "A guy," he muttered. "The guy who busted me out. He was a guard. They killed him."

"Son of a bitch." That guard had probably been Bob's original target. A dumbass, to get himself killed saving a hostage. Of course, Bob couldn't say he wouldn't have done the same thing. Brian complained about Bob's lack of self-preservation; he wasn't wrong. "Well, you made it. That's good."

"You're the person he was going to meet."

"Yep."

"Oh." Mikey visibly relaxed. "Okay."

"So," Bob said, "why were you there? What did they take you for?"

"I don't know."

"Oh, come on ..."

"I don't!" Mikey interrupted, louder than he'd spoken yet. He looked quickly from right to left and back to the front of the tavern again before continuing. "I don't remember ... well, anything, before yesterday. I don't even know who the hell I am."

"You know your name," Bob pointed out.

"Yeah, I know. but if I try to think about anything else - like, where I'm from, or what happened to me - it's all just a blank."

"There's drugs that'll do that," Bob said, nodding. Drugging hostages was rare, but Apex had been known to do it before. "I know someone who might have an idea. I can probably get in touch with him."

"Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why are you doing this? You don't even know me ... do you?" Mikey's eyes narrowed, and he hunched back in his seat.

"No, I don't. But I know someone who's ... well, who's had some experience around here. I wouldn't leave a rabid dog in the care of Apex, much less a person."

"Oh."

Mikey bent back over his stew. Bob took a long drink. When he set the empty glass down, the server was right there to pick it up. She bent over to whisper in his ear. "Corporate guards just walked in." She gestured to Mikey, whose hand was visible as he spooned stew into his mouth. "We have a back door."

Bob stared at her. "I don't know what you mean," he said carefully, but he started to scan the back of the room for the door in question.

"I know who you are. What you and your friends do. A lot of us out here on the fringe do. Come on, you don't have much time."

Bob didn't wait for a better explanation. He stood up and grabbed Mikey's arm. "To the back," he said shortly, gesturing to the server's retreating back. "Now."

They followed the woman through the kitchen into a small storage room with a door on the back wall. She unlocked the door and held it open. Before he left, Bob put a hand on her shoulder. "Who'd you lose?" he asked.

"My father," she said shortly. "Go, I'll go out there and make sure they get a whole lot of vague, useless information."

"Thanks." He and Mikey ducked through the door and back out into the night.

Bob started walking in the direction of the city center. Mikey grabbed his arm. "Where are you going?"

"To my ship. Come on."

"There are more of them in the city!"

"And if we don't get off this planet, they'll find you for sure."

Mikey stopped. "We?"

"What did I tell you?" Bob frowned and pulled him along with him. "Not even a rabid dog, man. I'm not leaving you here."

After that, Mikey trailed along in silence.

  
They made it to the dock without seeing any more guards. The ease of it made Bob almost expect to find an entire security team waiting for him at his ship. But the only person watching his ship was the manager of the loading team, who was checking the inventory on his palm unit. Bob shoved Mikey behind another ship's cargo before waving the manager over. "Hey, how's the loading going?"

"Only a few more pallets left. You'll be ready to go by morning, for sure."

"How about tonight?" When the manager looked at him, Bob shrugged and pulled his own palm unit out of his pocket. "Got a call," he said, waving the unit in the air. "My sister's getting ready to pop. My first nephew. I'm hoping to leave tonight - get this run finished so I can go see them."

"Congratulations." The manager frowned. "Did you file a new flight plan?"

"Not yet. Heading in to do that now. Can you let me know when we're all loaded?"

A new load of pallets appeared behind the manager, and he turned around to talk to the crew member that accompanied it. Bob wasted no time in hurrying Mikey onto the ship. He shoved Mikey towards the back of the ship. "My quarters. Shower. Stay out of sight."

Bob headed for the cockpit and filed his new flight plan. "Are you sure?" the control room operator asked. "I know you're heading for 876NV, that'll put your arrival in the middle of the night."

"You know anything about Cobra?"

"Oh, yeah." The guy grinned. "But don't tell my wife that."

Bob laughed. "Well, I'm not too worried about waking anyone up there."

"True enough." The operator pressed a few buttons, and Bob saw his new authorizations pop up on his screen. "Good flying, Captain Bryar."

"Thanks."

Bob leaned back in his chair and scrubbed a hand over his eyes. He wished he could call Frank, but he knew damned well that all transmissions were monitored and recorded inside Genara's atmosphere. The listeners usually didn't care too much about idle chatter, but Apex never met a blackmail scheme they didn't like. They'd certainly be monitoring the airwaves for any sign of their escaped prisoner, that was for sure, so asking Frank for advice was out until he got in the air. Hopefully that would be soon. He could hear the clang and clatter of activity in the cargo bay. He was tempted to go out and help them load the last of it himself, but around here, that'd be suspicious. He also heard the soft swishing noise of the shower in use. "Fuck, Frank," Bob muttered, "some days I wish I'd never met you, you jackass." He couldn't lie to himself, though - he wouldn't have let some guy get kidnapped for no good reason even before he'd gotten mixed up with Frank and Jamia.

A few minutes later, he felt his cargo bay door slam shut. His console beeped soon after. When he pressed the button, he heard the manager's voice. "You're all set. Lady's blessings, Captain."

"Same to you," he replied, and wasted no time in prepping the cockpit for his imminent departure.

Just as he began to power up the engine, the console beeped again. He pressed the button. "Bryar here."

"Captain Bryar, this is control." It was a different voice than the operator that had cleared him earlier. "We have a situation here. The port is going on lockdown until it can be resolved."

Shit, Bob thought. "How long will this situation take?"

"We don't know."

"Sir, please." Bob gripped the arm of his chair and offered a silent prayer to the Lady. "I don't know what kind of situation you have, but I've got a sister out there who's having a baby without anyone else there. I was hoping to be back before it happened, but she went early. I really need to get there."

"I'm sorry, Captain, but we can't ..."

"Sir," Bob interrupted, taking a deep breath. "I'm carrying twelve pallets of Sevens to the Cobra facility on 876NV. I'm sure the owner wouldn't begrudge a hard working man such as yourself a bottle or two." It was a more blatant offer than Bob would have liked to make, but without the time to dance around the subject, it would have to do. Bribery was a time-honored tradition at the Genara port; Bob was in the habit of keeping a small stash of valuable items to ensure the proper handling of his cargo. However, the current situation called for bigger bait - Sevens, the sweet berry-flavored liquor stored in natural crystal spheres (for maximum flavor, or some shit like that), was the most expensive beverage in the galaxy. Bob didn't want to know where Saporta got the money to buy twelve pallets of it. But Gabe was a practical businessman; he wouldn't complain too much about a couple of missing bottles. Probably.

Silence greeted his offer. Bob started to sweat. Then, just when he was trying to figure out if he had any secret small spaces to hide Mikey in for a few days, the voice came back. "I believe that if I come out to perform a personal inspection on your ship, we can allow you to leave the port before full lockdown."

Since the transmission had no accompanying video, Bob felt safe in pumping his fist in the air. "Did you hear any of that?" he yelled at the back of the ship once he'd broken the connection.

"Yeah," came the muffled response.

"Stay there. We'll be fine."

The man who greeted him outside his cargo bay was obviously the supervisor, indicated by the insignia on his shirt. Bob escorted him into the bay, where the man made a cursory sweep of the room before coming back to accept two bottles of Sevens from Bob. "Lady's blessings to your sister, Captain Bryar."

"I will certainly pass your good wishes along."

Several minutes later, the clamps that held the ship to the dock floor were released. Bob wasted no time in flying straight for the nearest set of space doors. Soon, Genara was just a colorful dot behind him, and Bob breathed for what seemed like the first time in an hour.

"You could have warned me you were taking off," a sulky voice behind him said. "You have a lot of crap on the top shelf of your locker."

"Why were you in my locker?" Bob asked as he punched the sequence in for autopilot.

"Hiding."

When Bob turned around, Mikey was rubbing the back of his head. Without the thick layer of grime, Mikey was pale, with sharp features and eyes just a shade or two lighter than his sandy-colored hair. He wore the old jumpsuit Bob used when loading cargo in the swamps of Palad, thankfully cleaner than Mikey's previous clothes. The fabric hung limply off of Mikey's shoulders, though, emphasizing how skinny he was. "You want something to eat?" Bob asked, standing up. "We didn't get to finish our dinner."

Mikey followed him to the galley in silence. Only when Bob handed him a meal packet did he speak again. "What is this?"

"The only food you're going to see for the next two days. Eat up."

"Huh." Mikey sat down at the table and began to tear open the packet. Bob was halfway through his meal before he managed to get the wrapper open. Mikey made a face at the rubbery substance and bit a corner off experimentally. "Huh," he repeated.

"If you've never seen a meal packet before, you must normally travel the lanes in a higher class vehicle than this."

"I have no idea." Mikey took a larger bite. "I keep trying to remember things, and it's like something just punched a hole in the back of my brain."

"You know your name," Bob pointed out, "and you know where you were. That's a start."

"I get the feeling that they wanted me to remember where I was and who they were. Don't ask me why, I can't tell you. It's just a feeling I have. But ..." Mikey frowned, staring intently at the metal table in front of him. "I remember the cell I was in. It was really dirty. The guards were laughing, they thought it was funny that I was in one of the worst places they had. They said that 'he' - someone, I don't know - would flip his lid when he saw me again, and that'd teach him ... something."

"Did they say a name?"

Mikey shook his head. "If they did, I don't remember it. I wasn't listening very hard, though. Mostly I was freaking out."

"Is that the first thing you remember?"

"No." He shook his head again. "I woke up in another room. Cleaner. Just a bed and a table. A guy came in and asked me questions. I couldn't answer most of them."

"What kind of questions?"

"Basic stuff. My name, where I was from, if I knew where I was and why I was there. He asked about a bunch of things I didn't know, too. I think he was trying to figure out how well the drug worked."

Bob leaned back in his chair. "I'll call Frank, ask him if he remembers anything about the drugs they use."

Mikey opened his mouth to say something, then closed it again. He bit his lip. "Okay," he said finally, "seriously. Why did you help me?"

Bob sighed. "Once upon a time, I was working a cargo run on Genara, just like this. But the woman I was supposed to pick the cargo up from disappeared. When I went looking for her, all I found was this little tattooed dude who tried to kill me." Bob laughed, which made Mikey furrow his eyebrows in confusion. "Long story short, I found my contact, and ended up taking the cargo, the woman, and the tattooed dude with me. He worked for Apex, but apparently employment with them is nearly as bad as being their prisoner." He turned serious. "I saw what they can do. It's insane. I'm not letting anyone suffer through that."

"But I could be worse than they are. What if I killed someone?"

"I doubt it. If you were a cold-blooded killer, they wouldn't have captured you, they would have hired you." That got a small smile out of Mikey. Bob continued, "No, their biggest moneymaker is kidnapping-for-hire. It's sick. Say a guy who owns a spaceport wants to expand, but there's a house right next to the spaceport that's been in a family for centuries. The guy can hire Apex to kidnap one of the family's kids. They tell the parents that they'll get the kid back if they sell their house to the spaceport. And they do keep their word, I'll give them that - that's why they're so successful. But they don't necessarily return their prisoners undamaged, either." Bob shook his head, dispelling the images the story evoked in his mind. "So, what happened? How did you escape?"

Mikey pushed his unfinished meal packet halfway across the table, making a face. "There was a guard change. They usually guarded me in pairs, but one of the new guys sent his partner away to get something. When he was gone, he came into my cell. He was mad that I was there - apparently my cell was usually empty. It was so nasty that they only used it when absolutely necessary. There was a hole in the corner, covered up by the bed. It goes underground and leads to the outside, and apparently that guard had been planning to use it that night."

"Huh," Bob said. "I always wondered how they managed to get out."

Mikey looked confused, but continued. "He dragged the bed away and looked at me. 'I guess you'll have to come with me,' he said, and then pushed me down through the hole. I went with him because, well, I guess it sounded like a better plan than sitting in a cell waiting for them to do something to me."

Bob nodded. "Good call. What happened after that?"

"We made it out the other end, but we didn't get very far before the guards found us. The guy I was with had a pulse gun; he told me to run and started firing. I didn't look back, but later, when I was hiding, I heard some of the guys searching for me talk about how it sucked to kill one of their own." Mikey stared blankly at the table in front of him. "He should have just left me there, he might have made it."

They fell silent for a few minutes. Bob finished his meal; Mikey eventually pulled his back towards him and started chewing thoughtfully. Finally, Bob pushed away from the table. "Don't get up," he said when Mikey looked up at him. "There are drinks in the cooler, if you want one. I'm going to go call my friend and see if I can't figure some things out."

Jamia answered the call. On the screen, Bob could see the circles under her eyes. "How long since you've gotten any sleep?" he asked without preamble.

"Hi, Bob, you're looking lovely yourself, asshole," she responded, grinning. "I just took over my shift here in the cockpit. I'll be engaging the autopilot and catching some sleep as soon as you get off my screen."

"Well, I'm sorry to ask you to postpone your nap for a few minutes, but I need to talk to Frank. Things went ... sideways on Genara."

She snapped to attention. "You okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine, got out clean, but ... well, I have an unexpected guest. I picked up a hostage, not an employee."

He explained the last few hours - Lady bless, had it just been a few hours? - to Jamia. Her response was succinct. "Son of a bitch."

"Yeah, exactly."

"Okay, hold on a second."

The screen went blank. When it flared to life again, Frank was rubbing his face wearily. "What the hell did you do, Bryar?"

"I don't have any fucking idea." He explained the situation, and listened to Frank curse along with him. "Got any clue about what I should do now?"

"First instinct? Kiss your ass goodbye, because your new friend there is going to be big fucking trouble." Frank pushed his hair - shaggier than it had been when Bob first met him, which made him look younger than his years - out of his eyes. "The escape route was built into that cell because it hasn't been used in a long damned time. The only time they ever use it is when they're working for the big guns. As in, the Lane corporations."

The curses Bob let out were creative enough that even Frank raised an eyebrow. "Please tell me you're joking."

"Sorry, not about this. Last time I remember Apex getting involved in Lane politics was when Simpson tried to take over Beckett, back when I first got conscripted." Frank snorted. "So it's been a few years. That whole business went straight to hell for them, so they've been laying low for a while. Relatively speaking."

Bob remembered the Simpson-Beckett feud; he'd just started working for Brian at that time. Traveling the Simpson Lanes and the Beckett Lanes had been restricted for a while, which had made cargo runs in a huge sector of space nearly impossible. Bob wasn't a big fan of the Lanes being owned by private corporations; each family corporation had its own set of rules, which meant a different set of taxes and tariffs at each port, different restrictions on what a ship could and couldn't carry between planets, and different rules of conduct for pilots that changed every time a corporation's board of directors got an itch. But private family corporations had owned the Lanes ever since the beacon technology had been discovered, allowing ships to travel faster than light between planets. It wasn't like that was going to change any time soon just because Bob Bryar objected.

"So, you're telling me that my passenger here probably has something to do with one of the Lane families?"

"It's a good bet." Frank shrugged. "I haven't heard any whispers about any of the families being in trouble, though, so I couldn't tell you which one or who he might be. You're on your own there."

Bob tapped the console absently. "What do you know about the memory loss drugs Apex uses?"

"Only that the antidotes cost more than both of our annual salaries combined. They only use them on people who are rich enough to afford the cure. Another sign that your boy belongs to one of the Lane families. Or maybe he works for one, who knows, some of those people treat their employees like family."

"No chance of getting the antidote on the black market for cheap?"

"Well, you can generally get anything black market. I wouldn't trust a cheaper drug not to turn him into a vegetable, though."

Bob sighed. "Well, I'm on my way to Cobra, so I might as well ask Saporta about the whole thing. He knows everybody."

"True. Tell him he owes me a game of Queens High. A fair one, not that shady bullshit he pulled on me the last time."

"Dude, if you're stupid enough to play cards with Gabe, you deserve whatever you get."

Frank made a rude gesture at the screen. Then, he turned serious again. "Watch your back, Bryar. I've got a bad feeling about this."

"You and me both. Seriously, you were involved in this kind of bullshit before. Any ideas, anything at all?"

Frank thought for a minute. "Get Gabe to forge you a new flight plan. Yeah, yeah," Frank waved his hand in the air when Bob opened his mouth to speak, "I know how you feel about illegal flight plans. But right now, it'd be in your best interest to be off the radar for a while."

"That'll mean ditching my next run, at least for a little while. Brian will kill me."

"Brian would have to move his sorry ass off of Janpur in order to kill you."

Bob snorted. Brian wasn't much fond of space travel any more, so the chances of him leaving the cozy spaceport where he'd set up shop were pretty small. "Okay, I'll get a new flight plan."

"Good boy. And good luck. Call us if you need anything."

"Always."

Bob broke the connection and leaned back in his chair. "Fuck," he said aloud.

"That didn't sound very good."

Bob nearly jumped at the sound of Mikey's voice. When he swiveled around in his chair, Mikey was leaning in the doorway to the cockpit. "Jesus, don't scare me like that."

"Sorry." Mikey crossed his arms over his chest; it looked more vulnerable than defiant. "Who was that?"

"A friend of mine. He used to work for Apex. In fact, he was the first one to ever use that tunnel."

"Huh."

Mikey was apparently not the most eloquent guy in the galaxy. "He thinks you might be part of one of the Lane families. Or maybe you work for one, at least. Ring any bells?"

Mikey shook his head, grimacing. "It feels like I'm chasing the memories around my brain, but they're too fast for me to catch. It sucks."

"Keep trying," Bob said. Mikey rolled his eyes. Bob spread his hands. "I don't know. I don't know a damned thing about any of this. And I'm not anyone - I don't have any connection with any of the Lane corps. Those people might as well exist in a different galaxy, for all I know about them. I'm just a cargo pilot. The Lane families are out of my league."

"Well, I know less than you do right now." Mikey shrugged. The gesture looked casual, but when Bob looked closely, he could see Mikey shivering. "I'll get off when we land. Find my own way home ... wherever that is. You've already done enough for me, I can't ask you to do any more."

"Yeah, right. Where would you go? If you don't remember jack shit, then you'll never find your way anywhere. Apex would probably find you quicker than you could even turn around. I'm not leaving you for that."

Bob checked the autopilot controls, then stood up. "We should get some sleep. There's an extra bunk room across from mine, I'll find the extra blankets somewhere."

"I don't think I can sleep. Can't we wait until we land?"

Bob let out a short laugh. "There's no sleeping at Cobra. Trust me."

"What is Cobra, anyway?"

"I'll let you see for yourself. I could never do it justice."

Bob started to walk past Mikey in the doorway. However, Mikey reached out and grabbed Bob's arm, stopping him in his tracks. Bob could feel Mikey still trembling, even through the fabric of his jacket. "Thank you," he said softly. "I don't ... just, thank you."

"You're welcome."

Mikey didn't let go right away. Bob found himself staring at Mikey's eyes, wide and tawny colored, fixed firmly on Bob's face. Instinctively, Bob put his hand over Mikey's, and felt cold skin slowly fade to something warmer. Mikey never looked away, but after a moment, Bob forced himself to step away and gently remove Mikey's hand. "I'll get the blankets," Bob said, and silently cursed himself when he heard how rough he sounded.

He felt Mikey watch him as he disappeared into the storage closet. When he came back out, however, Mikey had already ducked into the extra bunk room and was sitting on the edge of the bed, facing away from Bob. His head hung low, and his hands were laced over the back of his neck. Bob could hear Mikey's breath, low and raspy, as he took a deep breath in and then exhaled slowly.

Bob quietly laid the blankets on the bed and walked out.  



	2. chasing starlight

The Cobra facility was built on the outskirts of Elotha, a terraformed community on a small planet just past the intersection of the Barker and Beckett Lanes. Elotha hadn't even had a public spaceport for years - the only people who ever went there were ones who came to settle, and even those people were few and far between. That is, until Gabe Saporta showed up. Now their spaceport was one of the busiest in this sector, even if few people would ever admit to landing there.

The spaceport Bob landed in was still small and dingy, but it was crowded with small, ramshackle ships in every bay. As someone there on official business, Bob got a prime spot in the bay, just outside of the gates to the Cobra complex. Mikey was still asleep when they landed; Bob decided not to wake him. He left a message on the ship's communicator, keyed to play whenever the sensors noticed Mikey up and moving. Then, he locked up his ship and went inside in search of Gabe.

Somehow, the noise level at Cobra always managed to surprise Bob. The minute he was admitted through the gates, he was assaulted by the roar of the crowd, the beeping of gaming machines, the tell-tale sound of breaking glass that always preceded a fight. The decor was two steps to the wrong side of gaudy, with gigantic gold chandeliers and red velvet walls that somehow never absorbed the sound. Cobra was the place no one admitted to visiting, where a little bit of cash could buy you anonymity and whatever pleasures you wanted. Gaming was the public vice of choice - gaming and alcohol, which always formed a combination that earned Gabe more money than Bob could figure. A bit more discreetly - a very small bit, Bob thought, watching a pair of men, possibly twins, wearing loincloths and accompanying a gray-haired woman to the lift that would lead them to the private rooms upstairs - Gabe sold other pleasures, for the right price. Bob couldn't lie, he'd availed himself of those pleasures a time or two. There weren't many people out there in the galaxy's cargo bays that he was interested in, and Gabe managed to employ a guy or two that suited Bob's tastes. There was nothing wrong with a transaction between consenting adults, he figured, and Gabe had enough scruples to run a relatively clean business. It worked for Bob.

At one of the bars, he spotted one of the guys he'd employed in the past. His hair flopped over his eyes, and his elaborate jacket barely managed to fill out a thin, wiry frame. Bob's mind suddenly flashed on the image of Mikey, curled up in the bed on the ship. Bob scowled at himself and turned away.

When he swerved to dodge a drunken man stumbling in his path, Bob found himself face to face with a woman who wore nothing but a scrap of cloth between her legs and a glittering necklace. "Looking for something, sweetheart?" she asked.

Bob waved her away. "Business. Go find someone else."

When she walked away, pouting petulantly, he finally spotted a familiar face. "Ryland, you jackass!" he shouted over the din.

Ryland turned around. Today, he was dressed in a bright purple pants suit with an obnoxiously multi-colored cloth wrapped around his neck. It was possibly the tamest outfit Bob had ever seen him in. "Bryar! I didn't know you were coming today!"

"Obviously, or someone would have been at the dock to greet me," Bob grumbled.

"I'm sorry. Nate's been down with a nasty bout of Niosian flu, and you know none of the rest of us can read his calendar." Ryland shrugged.

"At least he managed to transmit my landing codes before he went down."

"Yeah ... oh, yeah!" Ryland clapped him on the shoulder. "I remember now, you've got our Sevens!"

"That I do. Where's Gabe?"

"In the office. Come on."

On their way to the back of the room, they passed by the card tables. Bob saw Victoria dealing at the center table; she waved when she caught his eye. "I didn't think she worked the cards any more," Bob commented.

"She usually doesn't, but one of our players over there is a board member with McCoy. He requested her specifically." Ryland chuckled. "I want to be there when he tries to request something other than her dealing skills."

"I hope the poor bastard doesn't intend to father children," Bob agreed.

They reached a large door, secured with an iron lock and guarded by a large man that Bob didn't recognize. He narrowed his eyes at Bob, but nodded to Ryland and unlocked the door. "Sheesh, the mountain wasn't there the last time I was here," Bob said when they closed the door behind them.

"Bad business a couple of months ago," Ryland explained. "Had a woman make it all the way back to the vault."

"Is she still alive?"

Ryland laughed. "Actually, she works for us now. Long story."

"You guys are strange."

"I can't argue with that."

They entered Gabe's office to find him gesturing wildly at a communication screen. He had an earpiece in, so Bob couldn't hear what he was responding to. "What? Different planet, different laws, motherfucker. I don't have to do anything except tell you to suck my dick." He paused. "Yeah, you have fun with that. I've got at least half of your partners in the place right now. Go ahead and tell them you're going to shut me down. I bet that'll go over well." After another pause, Gabe laughed out loud. "You're always welcome here, my friend. And if you get away with something, more power to you."

On the screen, Bob could see a red-faced man talking a mile a minute, but Gabe punched a button and the screen went blank. He pulled his earpiece out and turned to the door. "Bob Bryar! My friend! My favorite person in the world!"

"Yes, Gabe, I have your Sevens."

"Blessings upon your house and all your descendants." Gabe gestured to a chair across from his desk. Bob sat down gratefully, while Ryland perched on a table in the corner behind Gabe. "You're early, which I will not complain about since I have a group of fucking McCoy board members in right now. The happier they are, the happier I'll be. Or, more precisely, the richer I'll be, which translates to happiness."

"If you say so."

"Can I set you up with anything while we unload you?" Gabe leaned back in his chair. "Food, drink, men? We've got it all."

Bob snorted. "I'll have a meal, sure, but first ... I need some information."

Gabe smiled. "I love information. What can I do for you?"

"Do you know ..." Bob hesitated. "Have you heard if any of the Lane families are ... missing someone important?"

Gabe blinked at him for a moment, then put a hand to his forehead in a weary gesture. "You and the Ieros are playing storybook heroes again, aren't you?"

"Fuck off, Gabe."

"You're still stealing people from Apex, right?"

"Yeah."

"I thought you stuck to renegade employees."

"So did I." Bob shrugged. "Long story really short, one of their corporate prisoners escaped, and I ended up with him. Frank thinks he's probably attached to one of the families, but the guy got zapped with one of the memory loss drugs. So I'm flying blind."

Ryland spoke first. "I've heard some rumors ..."

"I've heard more than rumors," Gabe said. He sat up straight and started tapping a fast rhythm on his desk. "Where's your new friend now?"

"Sleeping on the ship."

"Go get him. I bet I can tell you who he is."

Bob returned to his ship. Inside, Mikey was awake, frowning at a data screen in the cockpit. "I didn't want to leave," he said when he heard Bob walk into the room. "Didn't know where we were, so I didn't know if it was safe."

"Good call. But this place is safe ... for certain values, I guess." Bob looked over his shoulder. "What are you looking at?"

Mikey shrugged. "Stuff. News reports. I don't know, I was hoping something would jog my memory."

"Come on," Bob said, placing a hand on Mikey's shoulder. "There's somebody here who might be able to help you with that."

When they returned to Gabe's office, all four of Gabe's cohorts had joined him - even Nate, who sported a red nose and a miserable expression, and Suarez, who obviously came straight from the galleys because he smelled like something delicious. The minute Mikey walked through the door, they all started talking at once. Bob couldn't understand a word until Gabe came over and grabbed Mikey by the shoulders. "Mikey fucking Way, I am so glad to see you."

"You know me?" Mikey asked, a dazed expression on his face.

Bob furrowed his eyebrows. "Way? He's a Way?"

"Not just a Way," Gabe said. "Gerard Way's baby brother."

"Well, fuck," Bob said, sitting down in the chair again. Sitting next to him, Victoria patted his shoulder comfortingly. The Lane families usually kept pretty well off of the news feeds, but the death of the Way matriarch last year had made all the feeds. Bob remembered Gerard, the grandson who inherited her job - pale, dark hair, big eyes. He'd trembled all through the press conferences that always followed a change in Lane ownership. "He's in fucking trouble," Frank had said on seeing him. Bob had agreed.

Now, looking at Mikey, he could see the resemblance. Mikey's hair was lighter, but he shared his brother's pale skin and sharp features. Gabe cupped his hand to Mikey's cheek. "I'm glad you're in one piece, anyway. Another Lane war would be brutal for business."

"You're the soul of compassion, Saporta," Bob grumbled.

"Fuck off. Mikey and I have history. Not," he immediately clarified, "that kind of history, so get your mind out of the gutter." Gabe stepped back and looked at Mikey's confused expression. "Fuck memory drugs, anyway."

"Will somebody please explain what the hell is going on?" Mikey said, folding his arms over his chest.

"Short version?" Suarez said, from his seat behind Gabe's desk. "You're a really important person, and all hell's been breaking loose."

"I don't understand. Who am I?"

Gabe pulled him into the room and closed the door behind him. "Take a seat, my friend, I'll tell you a story."

When Mikey had taken a seat next to Nate, Gabe walked to the middle of the room. "Oh, bright lady, Gabe," Victoria said, rolling her eyes. "Does this have to be a performance?"

"Shut up." Gabe turned to Mikey. "Once upon a time, there were two brothers. Their grandmother was one of the most powerful people in the entire galaxy, so their entire family was obnoxiously rich. Like, rich enough to buy this place out from under me three times over." Gabe sighed dramatically. "I'm still waiting for some Lane family to have an impressionable young scion who will fall madly in love with me and make me their kept man."

"Too bad the Simpson girls got snatched up," Ryland said, smirking.

"I'd only want one of them, and I know damned well you'd never find my body if I tried. And unfortunately," Gabe continued, shaking a finger at Mikey, "you're too smart to fall for my tricks."

"Well, that's comforting," Mikey said.

"There's always the little Cyrus girl," Nate suggested, snickering.

"Oh, bite your tongue, I'm not a pedophile. And I've had her brother - he's not worth it, trust me."

Bob waved his hand in the air to get Gabe's attention. "Mikey?" he prompted.

"Oh, yeah, sorry. So, anyway, two brothers, rich as sin, enough money and free time to play anywhere they wanted in the galaxy. And you do," Gabe said, patting Mikey on the head. "Play, that is. A lot. Your brother was always a lot more of a recluse. He doesn't really like me, anyway. But that's neither here nor there. The big turning point of our little story was the death of dear Elena. Your parents died a while back in a ship crash, Lady keep their souls, so the Way corporation fell to the oldest surviving family member - your brother. It's been kind of a rocky road. Gerard's not much of a businessman."

"What about me?"

"Sorry, you're not any better."

Mikey scowled. "That's not what I meant. I mean, if my brother runs the corporation, what do I do?"

Gabe shrugged. "The same things you always did. Have a good time. I don't know what you do when you're home. You're not too big on sharing personal details."

"Okay, you've given the background overview," Bob said. "But do you have any idea why Apex had him?"

Gabe nodded, and put a finger to his lips. He lowered his voice - not that anyone would be around outside to hear him, but Bob wasn't going to interrupt to give Gabe shit. "A few days ago, I got a call from your brother - or, more accurately, from his keeper. Bodyguard. Girlfriend. I don't know what she is, really, just that she's scary. I respect that. She was wondering if I'd seen you, or heard anything about you. I hadn't, obviously, but when I asked her why she was looking, all she would tell me was that there was a big problem brewing. I heard from another little bird that Apex might be involved, and that's big shit I try not to mess around with." Gabe looked at Mikey. "But you? You're good people. I'm willing to stick my neck out a little for you."

"Thanks." Mikey gave him a half smile.

"So, can you call the Way compound and tell them you've got him?" Bob asked.

Ryland answered. "A day or so after they called us, something blocked all transmissions in and out of their sector. We don't have any clue what it is, but there's no getting a hold of anyone, not even the goddamned public communication room."

Gabe turned to Bob. His eyes were uncharacteristically serious. "Some kind of bad shit is going down up in the Lane family echelon. If rumors are right, it could be another Beckett-Simpson deal. I hope to fuck that's wrong."

"Me too," Bob agreed.

The room fell silent for a moment. Then, Bob's stomach rumbled loudly. Next to him, Victoria laughed. Suarez stood up. "Shit, you guys totally need to eat. Come on, let's go pilfer the galleys."

As they stood up to walk out of the office, Gabe grasped Mikey's shoulder. "It's good to see you again, buddy," he said. "I hope the next time you come around, you remember the 200 standards you owe me."

Nate laughed out loud. "Nice try, but I'm sure he'll eventually remember how he cleaned the floor with you last time you played Queens High."

Mikey continued to smile tentatively, but Bob thought he could see a tiny bit of fear behind his eyes. So, he put his hands on Mikey's back and propelled him out of the room. "Food," he said firmly. "We'll all think better on full stomachs."

  
Bob and Mikey ended up in a small, empty dining room in an out-of-the-way corner of the complex. "Closed for repairs," Suarez said cheerfully, pointing to the large hole in the wall in one of the corners. "Fight between a big ugly dude from Manderi and one of our regular gamblers. They took out three tables and an unsuspecting drunk before security got to them. Gabe still hasn't given me the authorization to get it fixed. I might kill him in the morning." With that, he left them there, whistling as he walked back to the attached galley.

When he was gone, Mikey looked at Bob. "This is an interesting place."

"They're all crazy, but they're good people when it comes down to it." Bob sighed and sank down into a chair. Mikey followed suit. "Gabe can afford to hire much flashier operations than us - people with bigger ships and better connections for good stuff. But he's loyal as fuck to the people who are loyal to him. My friend Brian helped him get this place started, so when he left to start his own shipping business, Gabe was his first customer. We've been running cargo for him ever since."

"And he knows what you do."

"What I do?"

Mikey shrugged. "You were supposed to be meeting an escaped guard back there. You talk about a friend who escaped. You took me with you without really asking questions. Obviously, you do this a lot. And Gabe and his friends know about it?"

"Yeah. They've helped a person or two disappear for me. If you're looking for a fake identity that will pass muster on any planet you care to settle on, Gabe's your man." Bob spread his hands. "Don't get me wrong, Gabe's a businessman through and through - there are probably half a dozen Apex board members here right now, and he happily takes their money. But like I said, Gabe's a loyal guy. He trusts us when we say that someone needs to disappear, and his security won't allow any outside bullshit to go down on complex grounds. This is as close to safe, neutral territory as we get out here."

Mikey hummed in response. They fell silent as a server in a black jumpsuit rolled out a cart full of food. Bob's mouth watered at the scent. He and Mikey piled plates full of food and spent a quiet few minutes eating. After taking a long swig of the sweet nectar drink that Suarez had provided, Mikey cleared his throat. "What do you know about me? I mean, about who I am?"

"Not much," Bob admitted. "I mean, I know who your family is. The whole galaxy knows the Lane families - you guys, Beckett, Simpson, Barker, Cyrus, and McCoy, the big six. But as for you, as a person? I don't know, the only people I've ever seen on the feeds are your grandmother and your brother, and that wasn't much. The Way family isn't exactly one of the flashiest families. You mostly keep to yourself."

"Huh." Mikey took a few more bites of food. "So, how do I get home?"

"That's a damned good question. Lane travel around the family home planets is restricted - you have to have a special license to get there. Which I don't have, of course. Maybe Gabe can get us a flight plan."

Mikey frowned. "I ..." He shrugged helplessly. "I don't know how I feel about Gabe."

"He's a bit much at first, I know. But he's solid. And, apparently, you're already friends with him."

"So he says. This is all so weird. I don't know who I can trust. Aside from you."

Bob stared at Mikey for a moment. When Mikey looked up from his food, he caught Bob's gaze and flushed slightly. Bob felt a flash of pleasure, but covered it with a question. "How do you know you can trust me?"

"I don't know. I just know."

"You're too trusting," Bob said gruffly. "I wouldn't trust anybody in your position."

"If I hadn't trusted you, I'd still be on Genara. They probably would have caught me."

Bob couldn't argue with Mikey's logic. Mikey turned back to his meal, eyes downcast. Bob continued to watch Mikey. The low level of light in the room made the shadows play interesting patterns on his angular face. Mikey was ... kind of ridiculously pretty, and Bob really needed to not think about it. First, Mikey was confused and alone and Bob wasn't the kind of guy who took advantage of that sort of thing. Second, no matter what he did or didn't remember, Mikey was a Way, and that made him so out of Bob's league that Bob wanted to laugh at the very idea. He hadn't even known the guy for a full day. Attraction was natural, it happened every day. But acting on it ... Bob made a mental note to seek Gabe out and take him up on his offer to find Bob companionship. He was tired and stressed out and needed something - someone - to relax him. Good thing he was in the right place for it.

"So," Mikey said, his voice echoing in the empty room. He looked at Bob curiously. Bob's eyes snapped back to his food. "What do we do now?"

"Well, I think you need to stay out of sight. There are probably people around here that would recognize you, and some of them might be from Apex."

"So, then, what? I just sit on your ship until there's a better plan?"

"You got any ideas? Let's hear them."

Mikey folded his arms over his chest and leaned back in his chair. "I don't know anything," he said. "I just ..." He trailed off and looked at the ceiling.

Just then, Nate swept into the room. He closed and locked the door behind him. "We have a problem."

Bob stood up. Mikey followed. "What problem?" Bob asked.

"Apex." Nate spread his hands. "I think they must have followed you. They're at your ship."

Bob let out a string of curses that had both of his companions staring at him, wide-eyed. "Of course they did," he said, running his hand through his hair. "I hightailed it out of there right in the middle of their search, and I filed a flight plan. They knew exactly where I was going."

"Well, the spaceport manager isn't letting them actually get on your ship, but three of them have camped out next to it to wait for you." Nate moved past them and opened the door to the galley, peering inside and then turning back to Bob and Mikey. "The rest of them are busy trying to bribe Gabe to tell them where you guys are."

"Will he ..." Mikey started to ask.

Nate scowled. "Fuck no. Don't be stupid."

"What are our options?" Bob asked, pacing to the wall. "I can't fly us out of here, and I don't have a flight plan. And even if I did, they could find me by it."

"Ryland's working on that part. We don't have the authority to get you anywhere near Nariall ..."

"What's Nariall?" Mikey interrupted.

"Your home." Nate turned back to Bob and continued. "But, we know someone who does have the power to file a flight plan to Nariall. Ryland's forging you a flight plan to his place now."

"Where are you sending us?" Bob was a little wary. Gabe knew a lot of unsavory sorts of people, the kind Bob wouldn't necessarily trust not to sell them out.

"Clandestine."

Bob tried not to gape. Mikey looked at Bob, at Nate, and then at Bob again. "What?"

"Clandestine. Fuck, I'd never be able to afford landing there even if I hauled one load a day for a whole year for triple the pay."

"You'll have the docking fee waived. Trust me."

"What is Clandestine?" Mikey scratched his head.

"A playground for very rich people," Nate explained. "The most exclusive resort in the galaxy. And, luckily for you, home to someone you can trust to get you where you need to go."

"How do you know?" Bob asked.

Nate gave him a half grin. "You know how Gabe was quick to point out that he didn't have a certain kind of history with your friend over there?" He jerked his thumb in Mikey's direction. "The same isn't true of Clandestine's owner."

"What? Are you saying I ..."

Bob interrupted Mikey. "Okay, I'll take your word for all of this. We don't have any other choice."

"Nope, you don't." Nate gestured to the galley door. "Come on, Suarez cleared everyone out, we're taking the back route over to the port."

Bob followed Nate into the galley. Mikey fell into step behind him, sticking close enough that Bob could feel his body heat. "Nate," he said, to distract himself, "I thought you said my ship was surrounded."

"It is." Nate ducked through another door, which led them to a cold storage room. "You're not leaving in your ship."

"What?"

"Victoria is letting you use her little cruiser as long as you promise to bring it back to her in one piece. They've been prepping it for departure all night; she was planning to take off after her shift. She's got a guy out on Yuat that she sees once every few weeks." Nate turned back and grinned. "She hasn't told us his name yet. We've all got a hundred credits on which one of us will be the first one to make her talk."

"Huh. Tell her I'm sorry to ruin her plans." Victoria flew a tiny, two-person ship, a gift from her parents - or, possibly something she stole from her parents when she left, Bob had never been too clear on the details. "What happens to my ship?"

"We'll keep an eye on it until you can get back here. I promise, nobody you don't already know will touch it."

Past the cold storage room, they entered a dark hallway, followed by a room full of engine parts. There, Nate stopped. "Stay here," he said. "I'm going into the office to see if Ryland has your flight plans yet."

Bob turned back to Mikey, who was still shivering from the passage through cold storage. "You okay?"

"I will be once we're in the air again." He rubbed his hands over his arms. "They're out there, looking for me. If they catch us, if they see us, then they'll take me back to that cell ..."

"They're not taking you anywhere," Bob said firmly. "I promise, we're going to get out of here."

"Please," Mikey said, his voice almost a whisper. "Please, I don't even care where we're going, I just don't want to go back."

"You won't go back."

Mikey continued to shiver. Bob hesitated for a moment, then closed the space between them and wrapped an arm around Mikey's thin shoulders. Mikey instinctively leaned into him, until his head touched Bob's lightly. He smelled like soap and sweat, and his overgrown hair tickled Bob's cheek. Bob tightened his arm for a moment. "It's gonna be fine," he muttered. "It's gonna be all right."

The office door banged open. Bob jumped backwards at the sound. When he turned around, Nate waved a palm unit at him. "Got it! The official record says that ship is making its regular trip to Yuat. But these are the authorization codes that'll get you past the beacons and the waystations on the way to Clandestine. Just remember to shower and-" Nate looked at Mikey, still wearing Bob's old jumpsuit, "-change clothes before you hit the last station before Clan, okay?"

"I don't have any other clothes," Mikey said.

"And all my clothes are on the ship," Bob added.

"We've got you covered. Our guys were still unloading the cargo when the Apex monkeys decided to settle in, so we sent one of them in through the cargo bay to grab some of your clothes. As for you," he turned to Mikey, "Ryland's putting some of his old clothes on the ship. Those should fit well enough."

Nate handed the unit to Bob and made a shooing gesture towards the door on the opposite side of the room. "Go, Victoria's ship is in the passenger bay. All the Apex people are busy in the cargo bay and Gabe's office."

Bob extended his hand to Nate. "Thanks, man. I owe you guys."

"Damned right you do." Nate shook his hand firmly, then clapped Mikey on the shoulder. "Just promise to remember your old friends when you get your memory back, okay?"

"I will," Mikey promised.

The door opened onto a loud, cavernous ship bay. Bob took a deep breath and looked at Mikey. Mikey was no longer shivering. He gave Bob a nod, and then walked out into the bay. Bob followed along. The door closed behind them, and they disappeared into a crowd of avid Cobra customers, most coming to the complex richer than they'd leave it.

They dodged between people and luggage carts, bay workers and inspection carts racing from one ship to another. Mikey stopped unexpected, and Bob ran into his back. When Bob was close enough, Mikey hissed, "I don't know where I'm going."

Bob pointed over his shoulder at a small gold ship in the far corner. "That's us. Move, the faster we're on board the happier I'll be."

Mikey kept his head down as he walked. Bob, meanwhile, scanned the passing crowds constantly, searching every face for a sign that they were somehow looking for them. Luckily, everyone seemed to be more focused on their own conversations or the door that led to the gaming complex ... everyone except one man dressed in a white suit, who seemed to be frowning in their direction. Bob poked Mikey in the back. "Faster. Faster. Move."

"What?"

"Just go. I think we've been spotted."

Bob saw Mikey's back stiffen. He started to move at a pace that was nearly a jog. Bob widened his stride to keep up. When he looked back at the man in white, he was walking towards them. Bob cursed internally and poked Mikey in the back again. Then, suddenly, he heard a voice carry above the din. "Mikey!!"

Mikey froze. Bob thought about shoving him into movement again, but it was too late - Mr. White Suit was on his way to them. "Mikey!" he repeated when Mikey looked his way. "It's been forever! I didn't know you were here!"

The man started babbling something about challenging Mikey to some sort of game, but Bob didn't hear him. He looked over at the gold ship, just a moment away. So close, but at least the intruder didn't seem to be with Apex. Unless he was a good actor. Bob tuned back into the conversation. "Seriously," the man was saying, "I'm offended that you were going to leave without at least saying hello!"

"Sorry ..." Mikey began.

The man rolled on without a response. "And what are you wearing? Did you lose your clothes in a card game? I told you never to let Gabe choose the forfeits, didn't I?"

"Had an accident," Mikey improvised. "And we're running late..."

"Family meeting in two days, his brother needs him home," Bob interrupted, walking ahead of Mikey and tugging on his arm. "Sorry, Mr. Way, you can't stay any longer."

Mikey gave the man an apologetic smile. "Next time?" he said.

"You bet. Send me a transmission when you'll be back, I'll meet you here!"

"Will do!" Mikey shouted back at him. "Let me go," he hissed at Bob, who was walking backwards holding onto Mikey's arm.

"Get your ass in gear, the whole fucking place probably heard him shout your name."

"Let me go, I'm moving." Then, Mikey's eyes widened and he jerked away from Bob. "Look out!"

Bob didn't see the inspection cart heading for him until he was flat on the ground.

  
"I can't believe that one guy hauled you onto the ship all by himself."

Mikey's disembodied voice came from somewhere in the back of the ship. Bob groaned and gingerly moved the cold pack that rested on his leg, which was elevated on the second chair in his cockpit. "He was nearly seven feet tall. He probably could have carried both of us and still had a hand free to drive his cart." He peeked under the pack. His calf was well on its way to turning black and purple, and he would have to forget putting any weight on it for a little while. "What I can't believe is that we got the hell out of there without being noticed."

"That place was chaos even before you got run over. I'm pretty sure an elephant could have run through there and not been noticed."

"Oh, so you remember elephants, that's a good sign."

The muffled words that came from the back were probably a curse. Bob tried to grin, but it turned into a grimace when he tried to swing around to stare at the console. He readjusted his leg and rubbed the bruised area as he punched the numbers from the unit Nate had given him. They were approaching the first beacon past Elotha, and while Bob trusted Gabe and his crew, he'd never done the whole illegal flight plan thing. The law-abiding part of him somehow expected the beacon to start shrieking an alarm the minute he transmitted the false codes. Then, somehow, the ship would be incapacitated, and some unknown authority figure would come and take them both away and leave them to rot. "Shit, Bryar," he muttered to himself. "You're not injured enough to be delusional."

When the green light flashed on his console, he sat back in his chair and wiped his brow. Suddenly, the ship was sling-shotted into FTL travel, and the tiny points of light that dotted the blackness outside disappeared into a rushing ocean of darkness. "Gabe," he said to the ceiling, "I'll haul your next load of booze for free, with the Lady as my witness."

Then, he cursed. "Fuck, Brian." Who didn't know what was going on or where he was, and would be really pissed when Bob didn't call in for the details on his next job. But, he was paranoid now - if the Apex people had figured out he'd taken Mikey, they probably also knew who he worked for. What if they were monitoring the transmissions in and out of Janpur, looking for him? Or ... what if they'd gone there and threatened Brian? Bob shook his head to clear it. He couldn't do anything about Brian right now. Maybe when they reached Clandestine, he could send Brian a message. Or send Frank and Jamia a message. "This fucking sucks," he muttered, closing his eyes.

"No shit." Bob felt Mikey walk over and lean on the console next to him. "I don't understand how Victoria fits into that shower. She's taller than me, isn't she?"

"Just about. I don't think she's usually on here long enough to have to shower." Bob opened his eyes and looked at Mikey. Gone was the dirty jumpsuit; Mikey was now dressed in a skintight shirt in a deep blue that seemed a little tame for Ryland, paired with a pair of shiny black pants that Bob knew he'd seen Gabe's right-hand man wear on more than one occasion. Unless he had more than one pair, which was entirely likely. "You look more like a Way now."

"Says you. You've never met a Way before."

"Yeah, but I saw your brother on a broadcast. He was wearing some sort of flappy black thing that made him look like a bird."

Mikey snorted. "Maybe I'm the conservative one."

"Not if you know Gabe, you're not."

"Point." Mikey stared out at the black that stretched in front of them endlessly. "Do you have any idea what to expect? You know, where we're going?"

"Not a clue," Bob confessed. "It's where the richest people in the galaxy go to get away from everything. Peons like me will never have enough money to visit."

"But I guess I must visit there a lot. Enough to know the owner ..." Mikey trailed off.

Bob shrugged. "You and I travel in very different circles."

Mikey made a small noise in the back of his throat and fell silent. Bob carefully removed his leg from the chair and tried to stand up. He managed to pull himself fully vertical, but once he let go of the console and put weight on the bad leg, he started to crumple to the ground. Mikey rushed over to try to catch him, but Bob had stumbled against the pilot's chair before he got there. Mikey helped him sit back in the chair. Bob groaned. "Are you okay?" Mikey asked.

"Fucking leg. I can't fucking fly my ship if I can't stand up."

"What do you need to do?"

Bob pointed at the small console on the opposite wall. "Gotta enter the codes into the computer over there. It'll transmit our flight plan to all the secondary beacons, so we don't have to stop again until we have to switch over to the Simpson Lanes."

"Can you tell me how to do it?"

"Yeah, I guess." Bob handed Mikey the palm unit. "The whole list there at the top. You see the number pad on the computer over there?" Mikey nodded. "They go there. But there's a sequence you have to key in first."

Bob propped his leg back up as he talked Mikey through the process. Mentally, he cursed himself for being stupid enough to get hurt. Being a solo pilot meant that injury was usually a catastrophe. If he got injured, he had to hole up on some planet until he was mobile enough to care for his ship. Jamia nagged him about it on occasion - "You need a partner," she said. "Otherwise, you're going to kill yourself someday and no one will notice." He always blew her off, but secretly, he envied the hell out of Frank and Jamia. They didn't have to sit in the cockpit and listen to the sound of the engine grumbling underneath them for company. He missed human contact a lot more than he let on. But at the same time, he'd never really met anyone he'd want to have in his space that long that he wouldn't kill in the process.

Mikey started asking questions about the ship as he worked - how the beacon computers worked, what the codes did to identify that a ship belonged in the lanes. It felt good to answer, good to have someone to share the work with. Not that this would last. It was just ... nice to have the company, Bob told himself.

When he was done, Mikey sat on the floor next to the door. Bob felt bad for taking up the only other seating in the cockpit, but when he gingerly tried to move his leg, pain shot up to his hip, so he stayed still. "I'm still stuck on the whole thing about Clandestine's owner. I don't even know ..." Mikey trailed off again, drawing his knees up to his chest.

Bob felt some kind of twinge in his chest, but he ignored it. "I don't even remember the guy's name. I mean, he's been on the vids a million times, but I don't pay attention to that shit. All I remember is that he married the youngest Simpson girl a few years ago, because it was all anyone fucking talked about in this part of the galaxy forever. Pete," he said, snapping his fingers. "That's his name. There was some sort of big scandal about the whole thing. I don't know, Frank was the one who followed it. You'd never expect that Frank would be our resident gossip, but he is. Jamia forbid him to watch the gossip vids while she's in the room."

"Frank's the guy you were talking to about me, right?" Bob nodded. Mikey rested his chin on his knees. "Tell me about them."

"What?"

"Your friends. Tell me about them."

"Why?"

Mikey frowned. "Because I want to know. And, well, because sitting here thinking about how much I don't know about myself really sucks. So, if I don't know anything about my own life, why not know about yours?"

Bob couldn't argue with his logic. "Okay," he said, readjusting his body until his leg was stretched out as comfortably as possible. "Well, we all worked this job together a few months ago. This guy decided he wanted to move his entire house from a settlement on 607HC to the new farming community they just terraformed out at the very end of the Cyrus Lanes. I mean his entire house, bricks and boards and even the really ugly tree that grew next to his childhood bedroom. Even with two ships, it took us four trips to get everything. On the second or third run, I forget which, Frank decided to tackle the tree. Jamia had to barter with a guy out on the next planet to buy a wading pool big enough to soak the roots, but it didn't turn out to be big enough ..."

He continued the story about how Frank accidentally flooded his entire ship; Mikey's face transformed as he spoke, until he started laughing, and his expression practically lit the whole cockpit.

Bob kept telling stories. After a while, he didn't even notice the pain in his leg any more.


	3. chasing starlight

  
When they reached the last beacon before Clandestine, Bob gave Mikey the coded file that had been left on the Cobra palm unit, along with the strange message meant for Clandestine's owner. He understood none of it - something about a summer, and a couple of slang phrases he vaguely recognized as being popular with kids in this part of the galaxy - but the notes Ryland had left for him assured him it would get him permission to dock at the resort. As Mikey entered the message into the computer, he narrowed his eyes. "There's something ... like I might recognize this whole thing, but it's right out of my sight, and if I turn my head, it'll be gone. Fuck my memory," he grumbled.

It didn't take long for the resort's spaceport to respond. In fact, only a few minutes after transmitting the message, Bob found himself directed to dock in the far northern corner of the facility. As they descended, Mikey leaned over Bob's shoulder to look out the window. "Wow," he said.

"You said it," Bob muttered. Victoria's sleek little cruiser might fit into this facility, but had Bob been flying his own beat-up old cargo ship, he'd feel like he was walking into a masquerade ball totally naked. The walls of the bays were painted in a rich gold, and each individual ship bay had a whole team of mechanics and attendants caring for both ship and passengers. As Bob and Mikey watched, a small hovercraft flew up to the entrance to a ship. A gray-haired woman stepped out and onto the cushioned seat at the back of the hovercraft. Two attendants placed a trunk on the craft in front of her, and the craft flew off. "Think we can get one of those for you?" Mikey wondered.

"Fuck off. I can walk."

"Sure you can." Mikey glanced doubtfully at Bob's leg. Bob snatched it off the chair defensively, ignoring the sharp pain that shot up to his hip. He rolled the leg of his pants down and smoothed the front of his shirt. None of his clothes were really good enough for this place, but he'd had to make do with a clean black shirt and pants. He'd even trimmed his beard. If someone wanted to give him hell for being shabby, well ... this wasn't his place. Rich people could go fuck themselves.

Mikey was similarly dressed in black, but the materials of his clothing were noticeably more expensive even to Bob's untrained eye. Mikey had slicked his hair back off his face with some kind of product that Ryland had left for him; the whole effect served to hide any residual fear he might feel. That is, unless you looked at his hands, which shook as he gripped the edge of the console. Bob placed one of his hands over Mikey's briefly. "This is supposed to be a safe place, remember?"

"Yeah," Mikey said, not entirely convincingly.

They landed quietly in an empty bay. Bob finished inputting his landing sequences and cut the power to his console. When he looked back up, he saw a small, dark man standing on the platform in front of him. He wore a conservative suit, but his sleeves were pushed up far enough that Bob could see whirling black designs covering the skin of his arms. He bounced on his toes, squinting up at the front of the ship as he tried to see into the cockpit. "The welcoming committee, I guess," Bob said.

Mikey helped Bob out of the chair, but Bob pushed him away once he was standing. "I can walk," he repeated. And he did, slowly and gingerly, gritting his teeth at the pulses in his muscles every time he stepped onto his injured leg. Mikey walked next to him, not touching him but obviously poised to catch Bob if he should fall. Bob scowled and kept his eyes on the outer door as he walked.

When the emerged and started to descend the ramp, the dark-haired man rushed up to meet them. "Mikey!" he said, his voice too loud for the quiet bay. When Mikey simply blinked at him, he stopped a few steps short of them. "Right. Memory drug. Motherfucker." Then, he closed the distance and embraced Mikey. "I'm just glad to see you alive."

After an awkward moment, Mikey returned the hug. He gave Bob an unreadable look over the man's head. When the man pulled back, he turned his attention to Bob. "Captain Bryar?" Bob nodded. The man extended his hand. "Gabe's message told me about you. Thank you. You know, for rescuing him."

Bob shook his hand. "Are you ..."

"Oh, right. Pete Wentz. Welcome to my world." Pete gave Bob a strange half-smile before gesturing down the ramp. "Come on, let's get the hell out of here."

Pete led them out of the bay. Beyond the spaceport, they walked through halls that, while understated in decoration, made Bob feel too dirty to touch anything, despite the fact that he'd just gotten out of the shower. When they entered a glass-covered walkway between buildings, Bob hesitated for a moment, taking in the landscape outside. The ground was made up by violet and orange rock and clay; what looked like large rock formations at various intervals were, on second glance, all buildings, with glass walkways connecting each one. The whole place looked like a jewel-toned maze. "We're not terraformed, not really," Pete explained, stopping along side Bob. "The company that originally tried to settle this place tried three times, but it never took. I bought it from them for a song. Almost literally." Pete chuckled to himself. "My architects figured that if you can't beat nature, you might as well work with it."

"It's beautiful," Mikey said, his nose nearly pressed to the glass.

When Bob looked over, Pete had his hand on Mikey's back. He pointed over Mikey's shoulder with his other hand. "See the big building over there? Your suite is there. You haven't been here for a while, though. Not since your brother took over the corporation. I missed you." Mikey looked back at him. Pete met his eyes for a long moment, then started to walk again. Mikey followed silently, leaving Bob to bring up the rear, walking as fast as he could without toppling over.

In the next building, Pete led them into a large, surprisingly homey looking office, full of overstuffed furniture and brightly colored art. There was a large desk in the corner of the room, but it appeared to be empty. Instead, a mass of papers were spread out on a low table in front of a large couch; on the couch, a beautiful redheaded woman tossed a file folder into the pile when she saw them walk in. "Mikey!" She stood up, crossed the room, and threw her arms around Mikey's neck. This time, Mikey responded a little bit faster. "I'm so glad you're okay."

"Well, sort of okay," Mikey said, pulling back.

"He doesn't remember," Pete said to her.

Her face fell, but she nodded. "So that's what you meant. You ran out of here so fast, I barely caught what you were saying. I cleared the building, though, and sent a housekeeping crew to make sure his suite is prepared." She stepped backward and gestured to the seating area in the middle of the room. "Have a seat, guys. There's food on the way."

Pete kept his hand on the door. "I'll be right back. Gotta get something from my office."

"This is your office?" Bob asked when Pete was gone.

"Yep. Oh, god, I'm sorry, I'm being completely rude. I'm Ashlee." She held out her hand.

"Bob. Bryar. I'm a pilot." Bob felt more than a little stupid. Suddenly, he found himself in a room with members of two of the most powerful families in the galaxy, and what the hell was he doing there, anyway? He shifted uncomfortably as he sat in one of the chairs - the cushions were too soft, and he felt like he was sinking down to the ground.

Mikey, for his part, perched on the edge of another seat, back straight and leaning forward to look at Ashlee. Looking at him, Bob could barely remember the filthy zombie he picked up back on Genara. "You're ... Pete's wife, yes?"

"Yes, I am. I also oversee the resort's personnel, mostly because Pete's too soft for his own good sometimes." There was a touch of sadness in her smile. "It feels so weird to have to tell you that. Last time you were here, you spent the whole time making fun of me because I nearly fired a poor entertainment hostess for a decision that Pete actually made. You kept calling me Dragon Lady. I yelled at you every time you did it, but actually, it was really funny."

"I..." Mikey began to speak, then shut his mouth and very obviously changed gears. "I wish I remembered."

"Me too. But you will, eventually. Those drugs aren't meant to be permanent. I've seen people recover from them; it takes a little while, but the memory comes back in full, as far as I remember." When Bob looked at her, a question on the tip of his tongue, she shook her head. Her smile faded, and Bob could almost feel a drop in temperature when he looked at her face. "I was old enough to know things when my father ... attempted to expand his business."

Bob remembered the people he'd met on the edges of the Simpson-Beckett war - poor working stiffs, used as cannon fodder in a rich man's fight for more money - and kept silent. Mikey, meanwhile, gave Ashlee a half smile. "It's kinda nice to hear something good. Or hopeful, at least. Sometimes it feels like I'm never going to know anything ever again."

Her smile returned, and she reached across the table to put a hand on Mikey's knee. "You will. I know you will."

Pete returned to the room, carrying several palm units that he threw down on the table, knocking some of his wife's paperwork to the ground. She groaned, but he just shrugged. "You should do your work on a computer like a normal person."

"I can't look at things the same way on the computer screen. Stop messing up my office." She smacked him halfheartedly as he sank down onto the couch next to her.

"What are those?" Mikey asked, looking at the palm units.

"Every bit of information I have on you. What you order for breakfast when you're here, some event vids you appear in, all the messages you and I have sent to each other over the years ..."

Ashlee nudged him, smirking. "All of them? Really?"

He turned to her and grinned widely. "Hey, they're all good examples of who he is. Or used to be. Not that you're much different than you used to be," Pete said, gesturing at Mikey, "but anyway. I thought they might help you figure some things out."

"Huh." Mikey leaned over and picked up one of the units. "Maybe. Thanks."

"I have a better plan, actually," Ashlee said. All three men looked at her. She looked at Pete. "Our new doctor?"

Pete smacked his forehead. "I would have thought of that if I'd had more time to think about it."

"Sure you would have." Ashlee patted his knee. To Bob and Mikey, she explained, "We just hired this doctor - he does research, mostly, but he sees patients here in exchange for lab space where he doesn't have to answer to anyone. It works out well for everyone involved."

"If anyone around here would know how to treat memory loss drugs ..." Pete stood up. "Come on, I'll take you out to his place."

Mikey immediately stood up. Bob tried to push himself out of the chair, but his leg gave out underneath him before he was fully upright. He sank back down into the chair with a loud curse. Mikey immediately crossed to him. "Maybe you need the doctor more than I do."

Bob waved him off. "I'm fine. Just give me a minute."

"Why don't you relax for a little while?" Pete suggested. "Our doctor ... well, Spencer gets a little irritable if too many people invade his space. We'll probably do better if it's just me and Mikey."

Mikey looked down at Bob, doubt plain on his face. "I don't know ..."

Bob looked at him, then at Pete, who gave him a nearly imperceptible nod. Bob took a deep breath. "It's okay," Bob said slowly. "I think you're all right here."

"Bob . .."

Mikey blinked rapidly. It was an expression that Bob was beginning to recognize as panic. He placed his hand on Mikey's arm. "These are your friends. Go."

After another moment of hesitation, Mikey nodded and walked back over to Pete, whose eyes were unreadable when he looked back at Bob. When they were gone, Ashlee offered her hand to Bob and helped him stand. "Come on, you look like a man who needs a drink."

She called a transport vehicle, and so Bob found himself flying through Clandestine's glass tunnels, marveling at the structures he saw all around him. "I've been to a lot of planets," he said, mostly to himself, "but I've never seen anything like this."

"I'd never been off my home planet before I came here," Ashlee said, sitting across from him. "But I spent most of my life watching vids and reading history books about all the places I thought I'd never visit ... and I didn't read about anything remotely like this. I think I spent my first week just wandering from building to building, staring at everything and everyone."

"You'd never been off-planet?" Bob looked back at her, surprised. "I would have thought, with your family ..."

Ashlee's face twisted into a humorless grin. "Because I'm from a Lane family, you mean? You've obviously never met my father."

The transport stopped just inside the next building. Ashlee climbed out of the vehicle, while the driver helped Bob to dismount without falling. As he caught his balance, he heard a beeping noise. Ashlee pulled a small palm unit out of her pocket and pressed a button. She sighed. "There's a problem with one of the servers in the Emerald restaurant. I have to go see the manager." She pointed Bob towards the door that led to the building's interior. "In there. They'll have a table waiting for you. Order whatever you want, it's on the house." She patted his shoulder as she climbed back into the vehicle. "I'll be back shortly."

Inside the door, Bob found himself on the top level of a large nightclub. The stage sat at the bottom of a amphitheater-like setup, with tiers of plush booths surrounding it in a semi-circle. A host spotted him as soon as he walked in the door. "This way, sir," he said, giving Bob a strange half-bow before walking down an aisle that led to a middle tier. Bob followed slowly, until he was seated at a booth that overlooked the stage from the left side. He felt a little ridiculous; the booth was large enough for half a dozen people, probably, and every booth surrounding him was occupied either by enthusiastic, well-dressed groups or by couples leaning in to each other in intimate gestures. Still, the audience noise barely registered as whispers; the only thing Bob could really hear was the singer on stage. He listened as he ordered a drink from a passing server. The music was dreamy-sounding jazz, the vocalist a rich baritone that impressed Bob. He'd been a musician, once upon a time, before his need for money outweighed his love of the art. He knew a little bit about what qualified as good, and this guy - kid, really, he thought as he looked at the tiny, dark-haired guy playing the piano - more than had what it took. That was why he was playing at Clandestine, he guessed. It wasn't like the Wentzes couldn't afford to hire the best.

His drink appeared in front of him. Bob was surprised, however, when the person who set it on the table then slid into the booth opposite him, carrying his own drink. "You're Captain Bryar, right? The one who came in with Mikey? Ashlee called to tell me you were here."

"Bob," he said automatically.

The man - small, with shaggy red hair poking out from underneath a black hat - smiled and reached across the table to shake Bob's hand. "Patrick. Nice to meet you."

Bob tried to think of something to continue the conversation, but finally just slumped back into the booth and took a drink. "I have no idea what I'm doing here," he muttered.

To his surprise, Patrick laughed. "Trust me, I know the feeling. When I met Pete, I was playing at a dingy little club halfway across the galaxy. I don't really have any idea how I ended up here, except for the part where Pete's a force of nature."

"What do you do here? Play?" Bob asked, gesturing to the stage.

"Sometimes. These days, I mostly just run this place, and occasionally wander off planet to find new talent. Brendon's our newest," he said, indicating the boy playing on stage. "I actually didn't have to go anywhere to find him, he was working on the housekeeping staff. It was ... well, it's a long story, and probably really boring." Patrick waved a hand in the air, and a moment later, a server appeared with a tray full of food. "I haven't eaten yet today," Patrick said, pushing a plate towards Bob so he could serve himself. "So, I have to ask, how did you end up with Mikey? And how'd you know to come here, to Clandestine? I've been getting most of the information in pieces."

"The answer to your second question is Gabe Saporta." Patrick gave a knowing grin at that answer. "As to your first ... well, it's a long story."

Patrick nodded to acknowledge the point. They fell silent for a long moment, as they ate and listened to the boy - Brendon - sing another song, an old standard that Bob recognized. He began to sing along softly, tapping out the rhythm on the table with his fork. When he looked up, Patrick was watching him. "Musician?"

"Used to be. Played drums for a while back home."

"Me too. I played other instruments, but never in public, until Pete got ahold of me. He's stupidly persistent." Patrick smiled. Then, he gestured at Bob with his fork. "If you know this song, did you ever play ..."

As it turned out, Bob and Patrick had played a lot of the same music, and they fell into a long conversation that made Bob forget his discomfort in the surroundings. Bob lost track of time; he only noticed that Brendon's set had ended and someone else's had begun when Ashlee slid into the booth beside Patrick. She kissed his cheek noisily. "I'd apologize for being late, but I don't think either of you actually noticed."

Bob's thoughts returned to the issues at hand. "Any word about Mikey yet?"

Ashlee shook her head. "Haven't heard anything from Pete. Soon, trust me." She speared one of the few remaining sandwiches from the tray in front of them. "Go on, don't let me stop you. I love listening to Patrick's music conversations." She and Patrick grinned at each other, in what was obviously a private joke.

They continued talking, but Bob's mind was half occupied with worrying about Mikey yet again. He kept one eye on the entrance to the club. A short while later, Pete appeared in the doorway. He caught Bob's eye and jerked his head in a summoning gesture. Bob stood up, trying not to wince at the flash of pain in his leg. "Sorry," he apologized. "Excuse me."

Neither Patrick or Ashlee made any move to follow him. When Bob made it up the stairs to Pete, Pete offered his hand to help him up the last step. "Mikey's in his suite," he said without preamble. "Sleeping. It was ... well." Pete spread his hands. His expression was resigned. "Spencer tried. It didn't work. There are things only the doctors who work for the Lane families know, and apparently the antidote to memory loss drugs is one of them. I wouldn't put it past Spencer to eventually figure it out, but he's young." Pete shrugged. "The best plan is going to be to get you guys back to Nariall, let his family doctor do his thing. But there's a problem there."

"Communication block on Nariall?" When Pete nodded, Bob sighed. "The Cobra folks mentioned something about that."

"Gerard had been calling me twice a day, wondering if I'd heard anything about Mikey. Then ... nothing, for days. Nobody can get through, not even other Lane families. We had Ashlee's dad try, he didn't get any farther than we did." Pete laced his hands together and brought them to his mouth. "I won't lie, I'm worried. There's another family involved in this, Gerard knew that much before he disappeared. The only thing I can guarantee is that it's not my in-laws, and that's only because good old Joe is still recovering from his little war with the Becketts." Pete rolled his eyes.

"So ... another Lane family decided to declare some kind of war with the Ways, and Mikey was a bargaining chip?"

"Pretty much, yeah." Pete's mouth was set in a grim line. "No one here seems to know anything about it, or if they do, they're really good actors. I have people from almost every family and corporation staying here at any given point in time, and I've talked to everyone who's come through. But, do you know the part that's really worrying me?"

"What's that?"

"The Ways aren't as ruthless as everyone else. At least, Gerard isn't. When Elena was in charge, yeah, they would have given as good as they got. She was a tough old broad." The half grin that quirked the corners of Pete's mouth told Bob that was a compliment. "But Gerard ... well, he's got a couple of good people around him that know how to play the game, but sometimes I don't know how far Gerard will listen to them. I'm afraid that some determined bastard will run right over them."

Bob was silent for a moment. Then, he furrowed his brow. "Why are you telling me all this?"

"What?"

"You barely know me. I'm nobody. Why are you telling me all this Lane family stuff? It's not anything I have any business knowing."

Pete quirked an eyebrow. "You're neck-deep in family business right now. Don't you want to know what you're dealing with?"

Bob blew out a breath. "I don't know. This is all way beyond what I'm used to. I'm just a fucking cargo pilot."

"Like it or not, you've become a little more than that." Pete laid a hand on Bob's shoulder. "We can get you guys a flight plan to Nariall, if you want. But I don't have any idea what you'll find when you get there."

"I don't see any other choice," Bob said.

Pete hesitated. "You could leave now," he finally suggested. "You've already put yourself in stupid amounts of danger for someone you don't even know. You've gotten Mikey to a safe place. I could take Mikey home, deal with whatever's going on. He's practically family - he and his brother both. I owe him a hell of a lot. You don't owe him, or any of us, anything."

Thoughts swirled around in Bob's head. Part of him wanted to take Pete's offer, to leave and never look back. He'd already screwed up their operation on Genara, cost Brian valuable business, painted a target on his back that would be hard to erase. And for what? For a guy he'd only known a couple of days, someone who belonged in a completely different life than Bob would ever have. It was tempting, oh so tempting, to take the out and go back to rebuilding his life. But, before that sensible part of his brain could have its say, he found himself replying, "No, I'm in this 'til the end. I'm staying."

Pete gave him an unreadable smile. "I kinda thought you might be." He gestured to the door. "There's a transport waiting out there. It'll take you to the Way suite. Ash had someone make up Gerard's room for you."

"Thanks." Reminded of Ashlee, Bob turned around. "I should thank ..." His thought was lost when he looked back to the booth he'd recently vacated. Ashlee had her arms draped around Patrick's neck, one hand casually playing with the hair that brushed his neck. He was laughing at something she was saying; a moment later, she leaned in and kissed him slowly. His mouth opened against hers, and she snuggled closer to him as their tongues intertwined.

When Bob looked back at Pete, he was was watching the scene with a pleased smile. He noticed Bob staring, and his grin widened. "I have a good life," was all he said before he patted Bob on the shoulder and headed down the stairs towards the booth.

Bob watched Patrick and Ashlee separate and greet Pete with smiles before he turned around and headed for the door. "Rich people are weird," he muttered under his breath.

  
The transport dropped Bob off inside the entrance of a building decorated in understated colors. As soon as he climbed down from the transport, the inside door opened. Mikey stood in the doorway - his eyes were bloodshot, and his face was even more pale than usual. "What did they do to you?" Bob demanded.

"Nothing," Mikey said, leading Bob inside. "The doctor tried a couple of drugs on me, things that are usually antidotes to some of the components that make up a memory loss drug. But, none of them worked, and Spencer apparently hasn't worked out how to combine them all yet, not without causing an explosion."

"Explosion?"

"I guess there are drugs that get flammable when mixed." Mikey shrugged. He dropped down onto a couch, leaned his head against a pillow and closed his eyes. "Anyway. It didn't work. My head hurts."

"You should sleep."

"So should you."

Bob sat in a chair and stared at Mikey, When Mikey opened his eyes, his lips curved upward. "Neither one of us is very good at resting, are we?"

"Never have been." Bob put his injured leg up on an ottoman. "So this is your place?"

"So they tell me." Mikey gestured at two doors, one on either side of the lounge. "One bedroom for me, one for my brother. The upstairs is ours, too, some kind of big meeting room or something. I don't know, I wasn't up there too long. The bedrooms are kind of ridiculous. Pete says I decorated mine myself, but I don't know. I don't know too much about myself, but would I really want something so ... black?"

Bob snorted. "Well, it sounds like Pete might have some firsthand experience with your bedroom."

Mikey flushed. "Um. Yeah, I guess. I think it was a while ago, though."

"Probably. His love life seems to be complicated enough without adding you to the mix." Mikey looked at him quizzically, but Bob waved him off. "You'll figure out who you are. Pete's going to get us a flight plan to your home planet, and there will be a doctor there who can help you."

"Are you sure about that?"

"So I hear. But," he continued, "I can't imagine you're that much different with your memory than you are now."

"How do you figure?" Mikey raised his head and propped himself up on an elbow.

"You're really calm and collected. You're loyal. You're a good guy, Mikey Way."

Mikey's face turned red again. "I don't know," he said. "I've been reading the things Pete gave me, all the information about me. I sound ... I don't know, it's all about parties and playing around and jokes and stuff. It doesn't sound very important. I think I might be kind of ... shallow, I guess."

"You're rich," Bob pointed out. "When you don't have to work for a living, you can do a lot of fun things."

"Yeah, but ..." Mikey sighed. "Pete's rich, and he runs this resort. My brother's rich, and he runs the family corporation. There are a lot of rich people who work because it makes them happy, or something like that. Looking at all this stuff, I don't know what it is that makes me happy. I just seem to travel and go to parties."

"That sounds like something that could make you happy."

"But it's not doing anything. I don't know," Mikey concluded, frowning. "It just doesn't sound like I'm a very useful person."

"There's a lot of stuff that won't be on vid reports. There's probably a lot of stuff that wouldn't even be in your messages to Pete. I don't think you're going to know exactly who you are until your memory is back. Stop worrying about it."

"Easy for you to say." Mikey laid his head back down on the pillow. "You do things. Important things."

"I haul cargo. Mostly small-time shit. Nothing important."

"You rescue people," Mikey reminded him. "From Apex. You can't say that's not important."

"Eh." Bob shrugged, shifting in his seat. "That's mostly Frank's deal. I got into it by accident."

"But you do it, which is more than most people could say."

Bob didn't answer. After a few minutes, Mikey stood up and walked to a door at the opposite end of the room, one that wasn't one of the bedrooms. When he didn't reappear, Bob hauled himself up and out of the chair and followed him.

When he pushed the door open, he found himself on a large balcony. The glass dome separating them from the unterraformed landscape was almost within arms reach of the edge of the balcony, but something inside the dome was moving the air around in a way that made it feel like they were outdoors. Mikey leaned on the railing, looking out at the orange and violet landscape that glittered in the light of one of the smaller suns in this system. This was a planet of near constant daylight, with three stars lined up in such a way that a planet orbiting the center star would have light from one of them at nearly all hours. The one visible at this time of day was far enough away that it shone a pale, weak pink, casting just enough light to illuminate the buildings around them in a colored glow. "This is a beautiful place," Bob said softly.

Mikey didn't turn around. When he spoke, it was almost to himself, so that Bob had to walk to the railing to hear him. "It feels like somebody else's place. None of this feels like mine."

"It will."

"You don't know that." Mikey turned his head to look at Bob. His eyes were shadowed, lost underneath hair gone unruly again. "It's weird, the only place I've really felt comfortable since all this happened has been on your ship. And Victoria's ship, I guess. With you."

Bob's mouth went dry. He swallowed. No response bubbled up in his whirling brain, so he settled on a gruff, "Thanks."

"I wish ..." Mikey trailed off. He reached over and touched Bob's hand. It was a brief moment, only a whisper of skin against skin, but it made Bob's pulse skip. Then, Mikey drew back and stepped away. "We should get some sleep," he said, backing towards the door. "We're leaving tomorrow, right?"

"Yeah." Bob turned back and focused on the light reflecting off the glass domes all around them. "Good night."

He heard the door open and close behind him, but he stood there for a long time before he retired to his own room. Sleep didn't come easily that night.

  
The next day, Ashlee appeared at their door as they were getting ready to leave. "I talked to my father, and he pulled some strings to get you the most direct flight plan to Nariall." She handed Bob a palm unit. "There's still no answer from anyone on Nariall. Even my dad is worried, but that's mostly because he needs Gerard to sign some contracts about one of the Lane intersections." She looked past Bob, to where Mikey stood. "Be safe. Come back soon." To Bob's surprise, she kissed him on the cheek as she left. "You too."

When they got to the bay that held Victoria's ship, Bob found the small galley stocked with food, and a small music device laying on the cockpit console with a handwritten note attached - in a nearly illegible scrawl, it read, "For the road." He pressed play on the device, and heard a song that he and Patrick had been discussing the day before. It earned a half-smile. "Thanks, dude," he murmured.

Pete stood on the dock when they were ready to leave, in much the same position as he'd occupied when they arrived. Mikey walked down the ramp to meet him, and Pete wrapped his arms around him. This time, Mikey responded immediately. When he pulled back, Pete merely gave Bob a salute. "Safe travels. Call if you need anything. If something goes horribly wrong, I can round up reinforcements pretty quickly."

"Thanks." Bob returned the salute, a small grin on his face.

Mikey disappeared back up the ramp, but Pete's voice stopped Bob halfway there. "Hey, Bryar." When Bob turned around, Pete's face was serious. "When you get there, don't just talk to anybody. Insist on talking to one of the family representatives. They won't let you talk to Gerard, but ask for Lindsey Ballato or Ray Toro. They're the only people around there I'd trust without a doubt."

"Why?"

Pete shrugged. "Somebody in the Way compound had to be in on the kidnapping. Mikey was taken from his personal quarters, from what Gerard told me. Don't tell anyone you've got Mikey unless Gerard, Lindsey, or Ray hears you. Call me paranoid, but ..."

Bob nodded. "Understood. Thanks."

Pete tossed him a small object. He caught it - it was shaped like an old-fashioned key, but the wide end held several buttons that marked it as some kind of electronic device. "Codes," Pete explained, "that will get you here no matter where you're coming from. Come back any time. It's much more fun here when you're more relaxed." Pete smiled.

"I can't afford your resort, Wentz," Bob said, turning the device over in his hand.

"Your money's no good here. You'll always be welcome." Pete saluted again before Bob could protest. "Take care of him, okay?"

"Yeah, I will." Pete turned and walked away before Bob could find the words to thank him.

Inside the ship, Mikey made fussing noises. "You should be sitting down."

"My leg is better." It was mostly true; walking wasn't exactly a painless proposition, but he had a lot more balance than he'd had the day before. "But I'm sitting. We're taking off."

Mikey followed him to the cockpit. "Will you show me what you do to fly this thing?"

"It's not something you learn in a day."

"I know. I just want to see."

Mikey sat in the chair next to Bob. Bob began the take-off process, narrating it as he went. He had Mikey key in the sequences on the wall console - it only took one false start to get their course to the intersection of the Simpson and Way lanes set in. As they rose through the opening at the top of Clandestine's port dome, Bob felt Mikey's presence next to him, solid and warm. He kept his eyes on the stars in front of them. It seemed the only sane thing to do.  



	4. chasing starlight

  
It took them one full day to reach the intersection, and another day and a half to reach the space around Nariall. Bob had never traveled to the home planet of a Lane family before, but even so, the lack of communication worried him. "Brian traveled to the McCoy home planet once," he told Mikey, "and they sent him a message when he was four beacons out, asking him for his travel permissions before they'd activate the final three beacons to let him pass." They passed by the second-last beacon with continued radio silence. Not for the first time, Bob opened a comm channel and sent the same message he'd been sending for hours. "Captain Bob Bryar calling Nariall comm center. Emergency landing clearance requested. Please respond." He was answered with the same nothing he'd already heard.

"Where are they?" Mikey asked. He leaned his elbows on the console and stared out into the black, as if he expected an answer to appear in front of him.

"Your guess is as good as mine." Bob set course for the final beacon and sent a silent prayer to the Lady. If no one responded there, then the ship was dead in space. Unless Nariall had been compromised, in which case ... well, that wasn't something Bob wanted to think about.

They spent the next couple of hours in silence. When they approached the last beacon, Bob looked over at Mikey. "Last chance."

"Shit," Mikey said under his breath. He crossed his arms over his chest and sat back in his chair, eyes on Bob as he keyed in the code to broadcast again.

"Captain Bob Bryar calling Nariall comm center. Emergency landing ..."

Loud static interrupted him before he could finish the message. A moment later, a voice came over the comm. "State your business, Captain. This is restricted space."

"I'm traveling on special clearance from Clandestine, with an important message for the Way family."

"Please halt your ship. Transmit your clearance and your message and await response."

Bob stopped the ship, but shook his head at Mikey when he opened his mouth to speak. "I've been instructed to speak exclusively to Lindsey Ballato or Ray Toro. I will transmit only to one of them." He silenced the comm and waved off Mikey's frown. "Pete's advice."

Mikey nodded as the voice came back on. "The Chief and Mr. Toro are unavailable. Please transmit your message. If you do not comply, we will be forced to take measures."

"Measures?" Mikey asked.

"I don't think I want to know," Bob muttered. He opened the comm channel again. "Negative. If you need confirmation of my clearance, you can contact Clandestine's communication room."

The channel was silent for several moments. "Outside confirmation is impossible at this time," the voice finally replied. "Please reverse your course and leave Nariall space."

"Negative," Bob repeated. "I'm staying here until I'm allowed to deliver my message."

The channel fell silent again. Mikey stood up and paced across the cockpit. "What if they ..."

"What? Shoot us?" Bob shrugged with more carelessness than he felt. "I don't think they will. Hell, I'm not sure they even can at this point."

"Why?"

"I think their long-range communications have been knocked out. Otherwise, we would have gotten this whole spiel four beacons ago. If their communications aren't functional, chances are better than average that their spaceport's defense mechanisms are malfunctioning, too."

"You want to bet on that?"

Bob hesitated for a moment. "I have to, I guess."

Mikey made a noise in the back of his throat and turned to face the opposite wall. Bob turned back to his console and willed the comm to blink with an incoming message again.

They waited for what seemed like an eternity. Bob was ready to crawl out of his own skin by the time the light came back on. "Captain Bryar." This time, the voice was female, with steel running through every word. "This is Lindsey Ballato. Please transmit your clearance and your message, or I'll be forced to disable your ship. Acknowledge."

Bob looked back at Mikey. "Pete told me this woman was someone you can trust. Do we trust that's actually true?"

"Do we have any other choice?"

Bob shrugged in agreement, then stood and walked away from the console. Mikey sat down in his place, and after several deep breaths, pressed the button to speak. "This is Mikey Way," he said, his voice shaky. "Please let us land."

The response was almost immediate. "Mikey?" The woman's voice changed to something more urgent. "Mikey, is that really you?"

"Yeah. I mean, that's what they tell me."

"What?"

Bob leaned over the console. "Ma'am, he's under the influence of a memory loss drug. Please let us land, he needs attention from your physicians."

There was another moment of radio silence. Then, "Our scans indicate that your ship has no weaponry."

"No, this is a personal cruiser, we have no defenses. The only weapon on board is one pulse gun."

"When you land, you will come out without the pulse gun," the woman responded. "Mikey will come out first. If we see anyone other than Mikey, my guards will have orders to shoot on sight. Is that clear?"

"Yes, ma'am." Bob leaned against the console and watched as the landing authorizaiton appeared on the screen in front of him. He initiated the landing procedures while he stood; Mikey sat in his chair and stared blankly at the now-dark comm light. "You okay?"

"I guess."

"You're going home. That's good, right?"

"I guess," Mikey repeated. He looked up at Bob. "Is it weird to admit that I'm more scared now than I have been since you found me?"

"No. No, it's not." Bob sighed and ruffled Mikey's hair. "I am, too."

They rode into the Nariall spaceport in silence.

  
Bob chose to stay several steps behind Mikey when they walked out of the ship. Thus, he heard the woman yell "Mikey!!" before he got to the top of the ramp. When he stepped out, he saw a woman - black hair, with tattoos covering both arms - running up the ramp. She stopped just short of Mikey and put her hands on his shoulders. "Mikey, it's you. You're really home."

Mikey didn't respond. Bob made his way cautiously to where they were standing, mindful of the half dozen men surrounding the ramp with pulse guns trained on him. "Ma'am," he began.

She released Mikey and pulled her own pulse gun out of its holster. "Who are you, and why did you have Mikey?"

At this, Mikey put a hand on her arm. "He saved me. Please don't ... he saved me."

She looked at Mikey, then back at Bob. "Captain Bryar ..." She changed her mind and looked back at Mikey. "You don't remember me. Or anything." It wasn't a question.

"No. Not until a few days ago. I'm sorry."

She looked back at Bob, gun still trained on him, but continued to address Mikey. "Then how do you know that he actually saved you? How do you know that he's not working with the people who took you?"

"Ma'am," Bob interrupted. He held up his hands. "I'm unarmed. Search me, do whatever you need to do. But I'd really prefer to have this conversation without an audience." He looked around; many spaceport workers had crept up behind the guard team and were watching the proceedings with wide eyes.

The woman - Lindsey, Bob reminded himself - stared at him for a long moment. Then, she jerked the gun in a motion that indicated he should walk in front of her. "Go." Mikey fell into step next to Bob, which earned them both an irritated noise. When Bob looked back, Lindsey gestured to a door at the far side of the bay. "Over there. You," she said to one of the guards as they began to walk. "Search his ship. Make sure there aren't any surprises waiting for us. And call Ray and tell him to meet us in reception lounge 4."

The reception lounge, as it turned out, was a nondescript room with furniture that fell just short of being comfortable. When they closed the door, Lindsey holstered her gun and placed her hands on either side of Mikey's face. "Bright Lady," she said, a hitch in her voice. "We were afraid you were dead."

"I don't think that was their game," Mikey replied. He put hands tentatively over hers. She pulled away from his face and grasped his hands for a short moment before stepping back and pacing across the room.

"It wasn't," Bob said. He watched as Lindsey turned and focused her attention on him, eyes narrow. "If they'd killed him, they would have never gotten paid."

"I know it was Apex," she snapped. "They contacted us for the ransom. But then -" Lindsey shut her mouth and scowled. "I still don't know who you are."

"Captain Bob Bryar. I work for Avalon Shipping. My coworkers and I ... well, let's just say we have a vested interest in foiling plans made by Apex." When Lindsey didn't respond, Bob spread his hands in a helpless gesture. "If you want, you can call Clandestine. The Wentzes will vouch for me."

Lindsey rubbed her face and turned away. "We can't."

"What?" Bob had figured out the problem, but he waited to hear her tell it.

"We can't call Clandestine. Or anywhere. Something killed our long-range communications array. So you'll forgive me if I'm not able to check your references right now. And if I think it's really damned convenient that you showed up with Mikey while all hell is breaking loose."

"Hey, we've been trying to get someone to call you since we left Genara," Bob protested. "Which you can believe or not believe, because I obviously can't prove it."

"Obviously. Stand up." When Bob complied, she crossed the room to him and grabbed his arm. "You know, I don't trust you. So I'm going to have someone take you somewhere nice and secure while we figure out just what the hell happened to Mikey."

"Hey, this is kind of bullshit ..." Mikey started, crossing his arms over his chest.

Bob cut him off. "It's okay. I can go. I get the feeling she's got a right to be paranoid."

"Yeah, well, so do I." Mikey stepped between them and shoved Lindsey backwards. Lindsey froze, staring at Mikey with wide eyes. Mikey turned back to Bob. "I don't fucking remember anything until, what, five days ago? And in those five days, you've done nothing but help me. You've helped me, and Gabe and the rest of them at Cobra helped me, and Pete and Ashlee helped me. But when happens when I get 'home'?" he asked, sneering at the word. "I watch them treat you like a fucking criminal. And that's entirely fucking bullshit. So," he said, turning to address Lindsey, "as far as I'm concerned, right now the only difference between you and the jackasses who did this to me is that this room is cleaner than the cell they had me in." Suddenly, the energy drained out of Mikey, and he sat down in a chair, eyes downcast. "I wish we'd stayed at Clandestine," he muttered.

Bob pulled his attention away from Mikey to look at Lindsey. She'd brought her hand up to her mouth, but her eyes shone with an emotion that made him nod to her. She threw up her hands and turned away.

At that moment, the door opened and a man rushed in; Bob only had the chance to register large, curly hair and a rumpled suit before he turned and noticed Mikey. "Lady Bright, it's ..."

"Yes, it's me." Mikey spoke in a monotone as he continued to stare at the floor. "I'm home, apparently, but I don't remember jack shit. I certainly don't remember you. I've had a really fucking long week, but go ahead and interrogate Bob like he killed someone, because it's apparently what you people do around here."

The man stopped in his tracks, mouth open. He glanced over at Lindsey, who simply shook her head and dropped into another chair. "I don't fucking know, Ray," she said. "I really don't know what the hell is happening here today."

"That makes four of us, I think," Bob said.

"Does someone want to back up and tell me how Mikey got here?" Ray asked.

"Bob brought me," Mikey said, before anyone else could speak. "But now she wants to lock him up for it."

"Fuck, Mikey, I don't ..." Lindsey blew out a frustrated breath. "You have no idea what's going on around here."

"I don't have any idea of what's going on anywhere right now, which really fucking sucks. It'd be nice if you actually explained it instead of just waving your gun around and being all intimidating."

"Okay, fine." Lindsey started ticking things off on her fingers. "You disappeared. We found out you were somehow taken by Apex, under all our noses. It's apparently over a business deal, which has just about killed your brother. In the middle of negotiations, Apex stopped talking to us and our communcations array blew up. So we've been sitting here in the dark for the past few days, going absolutely fucking crazy. Suddenly, you miraculously show up with this guy we don't know, and I don't trust miracles, okay? So fuck off."

"Does Gerard know he's here?" Ray asked. Bob watched his face cycle through a variety of emotions, as his gaze flicked back and forth between Mikey and Lindsey.

"Not yet. I wanted to figure out if anything here was a trap. He's vulnerable enough as it is right now, Ray."

"I know." Ray turned to Bob, blinking as if it was the first time he noticed that someone else was in the room. "Bob, I assume?"

"That's me." He turned to Mikey, laying a hand on his shoulder. Mikey looked up at him. "Listen," Bob said, "she's got a point. I wouldn't really trust me either, if I was in her position. So let them take you to see your brother. I'll stay wherever they tell me to."

"No." Mikey brushed his hand off of his shoulder. "Here's the thing. If I was taken under their noses, like she said, then someone around here had to help Apex do it, right? Or else their security is so bad that kidnappers can just waltz right in." He rolled his eyes in Lindsey's direction. "They might not trust you, but I don't trust them."

"Pete told me to ask for the two of them," Bob reminded him. "He trusts them, at least."

"I don't care. None of you are the ones who sat in that nasty, awful cell. I don't want to go back. You're the only one I know for sure I can trust, so I'm not going anywhere without you."

"Okay, listen." Ray pointed at everyone in the room, confusion still evident on his face. "Here's what I know. Mikey's standing right here. Gerard is going out of his mind, worrying about him. We need to get Mikey to Gerard. If you won't go without him," he addressed Mikey, "then fine. Lindsey will be with us," he said, nodding to her, "and she'll keep an eye on him. You know we have to go get him," he said more softly, to Lindsey.

"I know. Fuck, I wanted to call him the minute I heard Mikey's voice." She laced her hands behind her neck. "But my job is to keep him safe. Or so I'm told."

Bob couldn't read the bitter tone of her voice, but Ray obviously caught whatever was underneath the words. "Fuck everyone else," he said. "You know the only people who matter are in this room, and Gerard."

"I know." She stood up. "Come on, let's go."

  
Ray led them through a maze of halls and rooms; they rode a lift down until Bob thought they had to be underground, and then walked through large, empty rooms in which their footsteps echoed loudly. "Taking the long way around," Ray said apologetically. "I don't want anybody to see you guys, not until Gerard knows you're here."

"I'm really tired of having to sneak around places," Mikey grumbled.

"Sorry," Ray said. He tried to ask Mikey questions - "Are you okay?" "What happened to you?" "How did you get home?" - but Mikey refused to answer. Bob didn't feel the need to jump in, not with Lindsey looking at him out of the corner of her eye. So, after a while, the four of them walked in silence, until they reached another lift. Ray stopped them before they entered. "This goes directly to Gerard's chambers. He's probably in the room. So ..." Ray searched for words, finally settling on, "be prepared." He clasped Mikey's shoulder as he passed. Mikey hesitated, then nodded at Ray before getting into the lift.

They rode up for what seemed like forever; it was probably only a full minute, but in the heavy silence of the lift, that minute stretched to infinity. When the lift lurched to a stop, Lindsey pressed the button to open the door. Before either she or Ray could move, Mikey strode out in front of them.

Bob was the last one out of the lift. So, he heard the loud, strangled noise before he saw anything - when he did emerge from behind Ray, he saw a mass of long black hair on Mikey's shoulder. The owner had Mikey in a death grip, his face half hidden in Mikey's shirt. Bob watched Mikey's face as it slowly crumbled; finally, he tightened his arms around the man and closed his eyes. Bob remained in front of the lift, Ray and Lindsey on either side of him. When he looked at them, each one looked like they were fighting tears.

When the two men separated, Bob saw the family resemblance in the other man - he had Mikey's pale skin and sharp features, while everything else - hair and clothing - was black as space. "Fucking Lady bless," he said shakily, dropping his hands from Mikey's arms. "You're home. You're really fucking home."

Mikey nodded slowly. "I, uh ... I ...I'm sorry, I don't ..." He put his hand over his mouth. Bob could see him shaking.

Before Bob could jump in, Lindsey walked over and linked her hand with the other man's. "Gerard," she said softly, "he's been drugged. He doesn't remember."

"What?" Gerard let go of her and put a hand on Mikey's face. "You don't remember what?"

"Anything. I don't remember anything. I don't ..." Mikey swallowed. "I don't remember you."

Gerard stepped backwards, as if he'd been burned. After a moment of silence, the curse he let out was inventive enough that part of Bob's mind filed it away for future use. "Of course. That's what they do, isn't it? Apex? I read about it," he said, when Lindsey frowned at him. "You think I didn't read everything we fucking have on Apex after I found out ..." Gerard looked back at Mikey and exhaled loudly. "Motherfucker."

"Yeah, pretty much," Mikey said.

"We can fix that, though, right?" Gerard looked from Lindsey to Ray and back. "Right?"

Ray was the one who nodded. "I'll go find the doctor. He should know the antidote."

When Ray was gone, Gerard finally noticed Bob. "Wait, who are you?"

"My friend," Mikey said, before Lindsey could answer. "Bob. He saved me."

"He brought Mikey in," Lindsey said, her voice carefully neutral.

Gerard shot her a confused look, but then walked over to Bob and grabbed his hand. "Thank you. I don't care who you are or where you came from or why you did it, just, thank you."

Bob shook Gerard's hand, unable to find the right words to reply. "It's, um ... nice to meet you," he said lamely.

Gerard turned back to Mikey. "Shit. Fucking hell. You're home. What the fuck happened?" Then, before Mikey could open his mouth, Gerard rubbed his forehead and pointed at the sitting area on the far side of the room. "Sit down. Everyone. I'm going to pass out or something stupid like that if I don't sit down."

Mikey situated himself in a chair. Gerard sat on a small couch next to him, leaning over towards Mikey. Lindsey sat next to Gerard, her hand resting lightly on his knee. Bob took a chair across from all of them and tried not to fidget. The room wasn't anything he would have expected the private quarters of a Lane corporation CEO to be - the furniture was mismatched, and the largest object in the room was a gigantic slanted table that held a half-finished art project. As Gerard talked, he gestured with ink-stained hands. "Okay," he said, "all right, Mikey's here. I can't believe you're here. What the hell happened to you? How did you get here?"

The room was silent for a moment. Gerard tapped his fingers on the side of his leg faster and faster, until Mikey finally exhaled and sat forward, leaning his elbows on his knees. "I was in this room. On Genara, but I didn't know it at the time. I didn't know anything, just my name. I was strapped to a table, and there was this guy there, just watching me. When he saw I was awake, he started asking me questions. I couldn't answer any of them but my name. Most of the questions didn't even make sense to me. Some of them make a little sense now, I guess, now that I've learned some stuff. Like, he kept asking me about Porzia - if I knew where it was, or what went on there. I looked the name up on Bob's ship, and I know it's a planet on the lanes that you - er, we own? I don't really know what the deal is around here. There weren't any files or articles in the ship computer about how this whole Lane family thing works."

When Mikey mentioned Porzia, Lindsey went very still, and Gerard flushed red - with anger, Bob guessed, because his expression was similar to the one Mikey had worn down in the reception lounge. "Go on," was all Gerard said.

Most of the rest of the events in the story were parts Bob had participated in, but he kept quiet and watched Gerard and Lindsey's reactions as Mikey talked. When the story was done, Gerard looked over at Bob. "I don't even know what to say. 'Thank you' seems like a complete waste of breath."

Bob shifted in his seat and shrugged. "Don't. I just ... I'm just glad he's home."

"Gerard." He turned back at the sound of Mikey's voice. Mikey leaned forward even more, his eyes wide. "Why did they do it? Do you know why they took me? Because I don't know. I don't remember if I'm supposed to know."

Gerard lowered his head into his hands. He closed his eyes and let his hair fall around his face. "It's my fault," he said, his voice muffled.

"No, it's not," Lindsey said sharply. She looked over Gerard's head at Mikey. "Porzia. It's a mining colony - it has one of the only sources of pure rhenium in the galaxy. The lanes in that part of space have changed hands a dozen times or more in the last couple hundred years. Elena, your grandmother, paid the Barkers a whole lot of money for them when she was young, before she'd even had kids, in probably the best deal any Lane family has ever made. She made back her investment at least ten times over the course of her life, just on the fees cargo ships pay to travel to and from Porzia."

Bob nodded. "I've done a couple of runs to Porzia. Not many, because it's way out of the way of our usual routes, but even though the fees to fly there were steep, we made the money back in spades just from running the rhenium."

Gerard sat up and continued where Lindsey had left off. "A while back, the Barkers sold their lanes in that part of the galaxy to the Cyrus family. The Cyruses want me to sell them the lanes around Porzia. They're offering a shitload of money. So much money that my board of directors almost unanimously recommended that I take the deal."

"Which makes no fucking sense," Lindsey grumbled, "because you'd make that much money from Porzia just by running normal business in and out of there for a few years. Why sell off the cash cow?"

"They don't trust me," Gerard said, his mouth twisted into a parody of a grin. "I think most of them are getting ready to just cash out their shares and abandon ship. I heard a couple of them talking about how the Way family lanes would probably cease to exist in the next five years, because I'd run the company into the ground. They may be right. What the hell do I know about running a corporation?"

Lindsay hit him in the arm. "Shut up. You're doing fine. You're learning. What more could those jackasses want from you?"

Mikey tapped his foot impatiently. "Porzia?" he prompted.

Gerard sighed heavily. "The miners on Porzia all work for us. There's another company on the planet that owns the mines, but they share the profits from the rhenium with us in exchange for a steady supply of employees from all over the galaxy. If the Cyruses took over those lanes, the agreement would default to them - they'd be the ones hiring the miners and sharing the profits. And, well, all financial concerns aside ..." Gerard hesitated. "They have a couple of other colonies on their lane routes. One of them is a farming colony, and the other has a huge factory that makes ship engines. They ..."

When Gerard trailed off, Lindsey took up the explanation. "Let's just say that the employees on both colonies are not necessarily being paid a living wage. Also, quite frankly, a good number of them aren't old enough to work on most civilized planets."

"I knew a family," Gerard said, "back on the planet I lived on before Elena died. They used to live on another planet, farther out. Their son was taken. He'd done something stupid, vandalized a store or stole a candy bar or something. Nothing that should have gotten him more than a slap from his mother and a few hours of cleaning up trash in town, really. But the town council had made a deal with this company ... it was probably Apex, now that I think about it, but no one ever told his parents who they were. When the town security force arrested someone, the council had the authority to sentence them to anything they wanted. Most of the young, able-bodied people who got arrested were sentenced to work for this company off-planet for an unspecified amount of time. The family got one communication from the boy - he was working at the engine factory, on the colony owned by Cyrus. And then they never heard anything else again."

"So they use kids," Mikey said.

Gerard nodded. "Kids, and people who aren't important enough to make a fuss. They pay them, sure, but never enough for anyone to save up and buy their way out. And that's exactly the kind of thing Cyrus would do on Porzia. I know it. So I said no, I'd never sell those lanes to them." Gerard looked at Mikey, then cast his eyes downward. "A week later, you were gone."

When Mikey stared at Gerard, uncomprehending, Bob spoke up. "The Cyruses hired Apex. It's what the Simpsons did back during their war with Beckett - they had Apex take a bunch of people connected with the Becketts until they were intimidated enough to sign over portions of space to Simpson. Apex doesn't care who they're torturing, as long as they're paid well for it."

"So," Mikey said slowly, "you refused to make a business deal, and these people got so mad they decided to hire someone to kidnap me? And that was supposed to make you change your mind?"

"Yeah." Gerard slumped back in his seat. Lindsey rubbed his back soothingly.

"And did you?"

"What?"

"Did you change your mind?" Mikey stared at Gerard.

Gerard shook his head slowly. "I spent the first few days mostly screaming at anyone who came within ten feet of me. But then ..." He carded a hand through his hair. "I don't know. I was thinking about it. I mean, they were making me choose between a potential colony full of slaves - or as close to as we get these days - and my brother. I ... I may have caved. I don't know."

"We'd barely started talking about options when communications went offline," Lindsey said. "At that point, we couldn't talk to anyone, even if we wanted to."

Mikey was silent and still. Gerard looked up at the ceiling. Finally, Mikey slowly reached over and put a hand on Gerard's leg. "I'm glad you didn't sell," he said. "I don't know much about who I used to be, but I'm pretty sure I never would have forgiven you for it."

Gerard looked at him. He took a shaky breath. "I'm glad I didn't have to make the choice."

"Me too," Mikey agreed.

Before anyone could continue the conversation, Ray emerged from the lift, followed by three other people Bob didn't recognize - two men, both dressed in conservative suits, and a woman dressed in a long, flowing red dress. Gerard looked confused when he saw them; Lindsey looked irritated. Ray shrugged apologetically. "Rumors fly quick around here. They caught me on my way back from the medical lab."

"Mikey!" One of the men walked towards Mikey, but stopped when he saw Mikey's confused expression. "I can't believe you're home."

"How did you get here?" the woman asked. "My pilot says he saw you getting off a strange ship."

"However you got here," the third man said, cutting in between his two companions and leaning on the art table, next to Mikey, "it's good to have you home, safe and sound."

Bob heard Lindsey give a distinctly unladylike snort. Gerard stood up and walked toward the lift, forcing everyone to turn and look at him. "My brother's been through a lot," he said, "maybe you can give him at least the day to rest before you start ..." He waved a hand in the air, indicating silent words that Bob could only guess at.

"Gerard," the woman said, her voice dripping with obviously false concern, "the rest of the board is convening in the council room. Don't you remember?"

"He's had a lot to think about this afternoon," Ray said.

"Oh, obviously," she responded, "and that's perfectly understandable, but ... the communications problem is something we need to discuss. We're losing money every minute we're out of touch."

"We have the best engineers and programmers working on it," Lindsey said. "There's nothing to be done until they figure out where the sabotage occurred."

"We don't know it's sabotage," said the third man, still leaning against the table. "For all we know, it could just be an equipment failure."

"I doubt it," Gerard said, "especially after hearing Mikey's story."

"Mikey should talk to the board," the second man said.

"Um ..." Mikey started.

Ray stepped in. "He needs medical attention. The doctor is waiting for him right now, in fact."

"The board can meet tomorrow," Gerard suggested. "You can talk to Mikey then."

All three began to speak to Gerard all at once - Bob couldn't make out anything, but saw Gerard's jaw tightening with every second. In the din, Lindsey stood up and gestured to Mikey. Mikey looked at Bob, who shrugged; Mikey stood up. Lindsey spoke loudly to carry over the other voices. "I'm taking Mikey up to the lab. Anyone who feels the need to talk to him right this second is certainly welcome to tell Dr. Hoppus why it's necessary to break his ban on business in the medical lab." No one responded to her, so she motioned Mikey towards the lift. Mikey hung back for a moment, but after glancing at the three new arrivals he followed her out of the room.

The man who had been leaning next to Mikey walked over to Gerard. "The board is, in fact, meeting right now," he said, touching Gerard's arm, "and you need to be there. At the very least, you need to tell everyone that Mikey's safe before rumors start getting out of control."

Gerard looked at Ray. Ray nodded at him. "Go. I'll take care of our guest."

The three strangers suddenly noticed Bob for the first time. The woman looked like she was going to say something, but then Gerard started walking towards the lift. "Right," he said. "Let's get this over with."

After a few more curious glances back at Bob, the three followed Gerard into the lift. When the doors closed behind them, Ray flopped down on the couch Gerard and Lindsey had just abandoned. "Motherfucker," he said succinctly.

Bob silently agreed. "Can I ask what just happened here?"

Ray made a face. "It's a long story. Short version, those people are all assholes."

"I figured that. They were big enough assholes to make Lindsey stop watching me like a hawk, which is impressive."

"Don't be too hard on her," Ray said. "She's been through a lot recently. This whole Mikey thing was just the icing on the cake. Most of the board is calling for her head as chief of security."

"Were those people from the board?"

"Two of them. The other guy," Ray gestured at the art table, where the third man had stood. "is the Way family solicitor." Ray stood up suddenly. "Okay, while I'm not as paranoid as Lindsey, I'm still not going to sit here and talk about our business to a complete stranger. Sorry."

"It's okay." Bob stood up, as well. "So, what now?"

"I'll set you up in some quarters. They'll have to be near the family quarters," Ray mused, "or Mikey will probably throw a fit. Come on, we'll go see what's available."

Bob let Ray lead him back down to the common areas, and bit back the questions about Mikey that kept popping into his head. Like, where was the medical lab, and what precisely was the doctor doing to reverse his memory loss? Part of his brain was screaming at him to go find Mikey, watch him - _He's with his family now, dumbass_, Bob told himself firmly. _He doesn't need you to protect him._

However, Mikey had been right earlier - someone inside the Way compound had to have helped kidnap him. And that didn't make Bob rest easy, even after he was ensconced in a luxurious room with the softest bed he'd probably ever slept on. He laid down, but stared at the ceiling for a long time.

  
A loud buzz woke Bob out of a sound sleep. He didn't know how long he'd been sleeping - nothing in the room displayed the time - but he shook off the lethargy when he realized the buzz was from the door. When he opened it, he found Mikey staring at him. "Sorry," Mikey said, looking at Bob's rumpled clothing and hair. "Didn't mean to wake you."

"It's okay." Bob stepped aside and let Mikey into the room. "What happened?"

Mikey shrugged. "He injected me with something. Then I had to lay there for a long time, to make sure I didn't pass out or something. It was kinda boring." He sat down on the edge of the bed. "Actually, I talked to Lindsey for a while. She's not bad. I guess we're actually friends, you know, when I remember."

"Probably." Bob leaned against a wall across from Mikey. "You don't remember yet? Did the antidote not work?"

"No, it's working. The doctor says it takes a couple of days to fully kick in. He warned me I might not feel anything until at least tomorrow. But, I'm starting to remember things even now." Mike slid backwards on the large bed until his feet were danging a couple of inches from the floor. "It's like ... flashes, nothing solid, just images. I remember the candy my grandmother used to give me - I saw Gerard just now, and he confirmed that it's a real memory. I remember how I played a trick on Gerard one time and locked him outside in his pajamas. I have this one image of Pete ..." Mikey blushed. "Everywhere I walk, I get a flash of something. In Gerard's rooms, I remembered him drawing me this little comic of a guy flying through space with a little jetpack on his back. I remember having this business meeting with that solicitor guy in my private rooms. In the hallway outside of here, I remember dodging these annoying people who were staying here for some kind of business meeting. It's just ..." Mikey spread his hands wide. "I have these images, but none of them really tell me anything about how I feel about things, or who I am."

"But you're remembering. That's the good part."

"Yeah, I guess."

"You guess?"

"I don't know." Mikey pushed himself off the bed and walked around to the small bar at the corner of the room, where he poured himself a drink of whatever beverage someone had left sitting there. "This place is weird. Even though I'm starting to remember these things, it still feels like I don't belong here. I'm all itchy, like I want to jump back on that ship and fly as far away from here as I can."

"You'll feel different once you remember everything."

"Will I?" Mikey downed his entire drink in one gulp. When he went to pour himself another one, Bob crossed the room and took the bottle out of his hand. Mikey scowled and leaned on the bar. "I wish we hadn't come here."

"No you don't."

"Fuck you." Mikey didn't look up. "If we hadn't come here, I wouldn't feel so goddamned guilty for not knowing my brother. I could barely look at him, Bob. He's just so devastated, every time he remembers that I don't remember. It's like I'm letting him down."

"How? Because a bunch of assholes kidnapped you?"

"Because I was apparently stupid enough to let myself get kidnapped."

"That's a bunch of bullshit." At that, Mikey looked up. Bob frowned at him. "Who the hell expects to be kidnapped out of their own home? If there's anywhere you should have felt safe, it was here. So it's not your fault. None of it is."

"I don't know," Mikey said again. He stood up and leaned heavily against the bar. "I just wish ..."

Mikey fell silent. His eyes searched Bob's face; Bob felt himself flush under the intense scrutiny. Mikey tenatively rested his hand on top of the one Bob had on the bar. The physical sensation startled Bob, but he instinctively turned his hand over and grasped Mikey's. Mikey leaned closer. Bob's brain didn't register what was about to happen until Mikey had pressed his lips against Bob's. Bob's grip on Mikey's hand tightened, which caused Mikey to make a small sound against Bob's mouth. Bob felt the tiny vibration all over his skin, which made him lift his other hand to Mikey's hip to steady himself. Mikey pulled back just a tiny bit; his nose brushed against Bob's as he looked at Bob questioningly. His breath was warm, and smelled slightly of the alcohol that he'd just consumed. A warning sparked in Bob's brain, but then Mikey laid his free hand on Bob's chest, and the contact drove Bob to lean back in and capture Mikey's mouth.

Bob lost track of time, of right and wrong - for those minutes, all he knew was Mikey's mouth, warm and wet and insistent, Mikey's slender body pressed flush against his, his hands that came to rest on either side of Bob's neck, his fingers curling in the ends of Bob's hair. When they separated, Mikey leaned his forehead against Bob's and kept his eyes closed. Bob studied the shadows his eyelashes made against his cheeks. When Mikey murmured Bob's name, Bob's brain finally kicked back in, and he stepped backwards, out of Mikey's grasp. Mikey's eyes snapped open. "Mikey ...." Bob rubbed his cheeks, feeling the slight growth of whiskers drag against his hands. "Fuck, I don't ..."

When Bob trailed off, Mikey's face tightened into a blank expression Bob had seen enough times in the past week to recognize. "Sorry," he said, turning back to the bar.

"Mikey. Mikey," he repeated, until Mikey looked back up at him again. "I just don't want ... I don't want you to do anything you'll regret when you get your memory back."

"You don't have any idea what I'd regret." Mikey pushed away from the bar and walked away. Halfway across the room, he stopped and turned around. "That stupid drug didn't make me a moron, you know."

"I know. That's not what I ..." Bob closed his eyes. His hand, leaning on the bar, found the bottle he'd taken from Mikey, and in a moment of frustration he shoved it hard enough that it thumped to the ground on the opposite side of the bar. When he opened his eyes, Mikey was staring at him, bright eyes the only sign of emotion on his face. "You could remember anything over the next few days. A boyfriend, a girlfriend. I don't ..." Bob took a deep breath. "I don't just want to be here because I'm the only person you fucking know right now."

"Is that what you think?" Mikey turned around, then turned back quickly and crossed back to Bob. "So you do think the drug made me an idiot. Fuck off."

"I don't -" When Mikey stopped in front of him, Bob's willpower snapped. "Fuck this." He grabbed Mikey and kissed him, hard and fast, pulling Mikey close enough that he could feel the other man's erratic heartbeat against his chest. Mikey barely resisted; after only a second, he wrapped his arms around Bob and dug his fingers into his back. He backed Bob back into the bar. For such a skinny guy, he was surprisingly strong, and Bob began to feel his body react to Mikey as he pressed against him. Mikey groaned incoherently.

Suddenly, something beeped loudly. Neither man reacted until the beeping continued. On the fifth repeated beep, Mikey tore himself away and cursed creatively. "What the fuck is that?"

"It sounds like it's coming from you," Bob said.

Neither one of them moved right away, but when the beeping wouldn't stop, Mikey stepped away and reached into his pocket. He pulled out a small communicator. "Lindsey gave it to me," he explained, making a sour face at the device. Finally, he pressed a button, and the beeping stopped. Gerard's voice came out of the small speaker. "Mikey?"

"Yeah?" Mikey responded, turning away from Bob.

"Can you come up to my rooms? The doctor's here, he has some things to ask you. I guess he wants to make sure everything's working right."

Mikey was still and silent for a moment. Bob watched his back hunch over slightly. "Okay," he said finally. "I'll be there in a few minutes."

When Mikey closed the connection and turned back to Bob, Bob nodded. "Go on."

"You coming?"

Bob shook his head. "No. You should ... go, talk to your brother. It'll probably help."

Mikey's expression closed off. "Right." He shoved the communicator back into his pocket and turned around. He left the room without saying another word.

When he was gone, Bob retrieved the bottle from the floor - closed and unharmed, thanks to the soft carpeting in the room - and opened it. He drank straight from the bottle. By the time he'd finished, the bottle was half empty. He took the bottle back to the bed, and finished it off as he spent the rest of the evening staring at old vid programs.

His door didn't buzz again.


	5. chasing starlight

  
The next morning, Bob woke to the sound of the room's computer beeping insistently. The empty bottle fell off the edge of the bed as Bob pushed himself to a standing position. When he made it to the computer, he found a message waiting for him from Lindsey. "Could you meet us upstairs in Gerard's rooms?" was all she asked. Bob frowned. But, he pulled on a clean set of clothing - somehow provided by whatever magical elves had made up the room for him - and wandered through the corridors until he found the lift that led to Gerard's rooms.

When he emerged from the lift, he saw Gerard sitting at the art table, hair falling into his eyes as he drew something in large, black strokes. Lindsey sat on the couch, bare feet propped up on a pillow as she studied a palm unit. She looked up as Bob crossed the room. "Thanks for coming," she said. "Are you hungry?"

"Yeah, sorta." He stopped and watched Lindsey as she grabbed a communicator off the table next to her and turned it on. "Breakfast for three, please," she said into it. "With more coffee," she added, glancing at Gerard, who was staring mournfully at an empty cup.

Gerard looked up and noticed Bob. "Hey! How was your night?" He hopped off of his stool and walked over to the sitting area, waving Bob to join him. "I thought you'd come up with Mikey last night. You know, since he was with you when we called him."

Bob's pulse skipped a beat. "How'd you know that?"

"We have a new security system that lets us know where any particular communicator is on the premises at any given point in time." Lindsey waved her communicator in the air before setting it back down. "Only Gerard, Ray and I know about it yet, because we're still testing it. But it seems to work pretty well."

Bob raised an eyebrow. "Okay, so if it's a big secret, why are you telling me?"

Lindsey's mouth curved into a half-grin. "Our long-range communications are currently being fixed. One of the techs found the problem, and they've been working all night on it. We've started to get some delayed messages from outside. A couple of them were from Clandestine." She gave Bob a mocking salute. "I had to be sure about you, you know. After everything that's happened ..."

Bob shrugged, a pleased smile tugging at his lips. "I understand."

"And," Gerard added, "now, you're apparently one of the few people we know we can trust. Because you weren't here when everything went to hell, and we have no idea who was involved. Or how many people were involved."

"When they discovered the sabotage," Lindsey said, "they found the ID codes of the tech who disabled the system. Unfortunately, that tech left the planet just before we shut the port down, so we have no way of finding out who he was working with."

"Where's Mikey now?" Bob asked, looking around the room.

"Sleeping," Gerard answered. "We were up pretty late last night."

"You should still be sleeping," Lindsey reminded him.

"Can't sleep. I think too much."

Their breakfast arrived, and Bob allowed himself to enjoy the kind of meat and pastries he rarely could afford himself. Gerard and Lindsey talked about people and events that Bob had no idea about - business things, he assumed. He tuned out until he heard Lindsey say, "... and LaCaron was acting so sickeningly happy about Mikey's return last night. I wanted to punch him in the face."

"It's not like he wants Mikey dead or something," Gerard said, his mouth full. "And he's got the upper hand right now, unfortunately. So he has no reason to be anything other than professional."

"That wasn't professional. That was insulting."

"Yeah, I know." Gerard shrugged. "But Ray's smacked me enough times for being an asshole to him, I can't do anything about it."

"What are you guys talking about?" When both of them looked at Bob, startled, he put a hand up. "Sorry, none of my business ..."

"It's okay." Gerard sat back in his chair and sighed. "It's a long, boring story, especially if you don't care about legal stuff. But, the one business mistake my grandmother ever made was to not rewrite her will when Mikey came of age. She remembered to do it when I got old enough, but apparently it just never happened again. So, when she died, everything she left me - including this stupid corporation - " Gerard made a face, "- was mine, straight out, no problem. But, Mikey's half, the will still said that was to be administered by her personal solicitor. That's Mr. LaCaron, one of the guys who was in here last night, do you remember?"

Bob nodded. "Standing over there, next to Mikey?" He gestured at the art table.

"That's him. We spent a long time after Elena died looking for another will, because it just didn't seem like her. It should have at least said he was in charge only until Mikey was old enough to take care of it himself, but it didn't. So, in legal terms, LaCaron could do whatever he wanted with Mikey's half of the inheritance."

"It's bullshit," Lindsey said bluntly. "And, since the board of directors is the ultimate authority around here, we can't do anything about it - they like LaCaron, and they think Mikey's even more useless than his brother." She sneered. "Mikey's hired his own solicitor to fight the will. There's an independent arbitration team that works for Barker, they've agreed to come take a look at things if both sides agree to it."

"LaCaron's been fighting, obviously," Gerard said. "As it stands, he controls a pretty big fortune, with no real restrictions on what he can do with it. Meanwhile, Mikey's got nothing of his own. I've been giving him money, but it sucks that he's supposed to have just as much as I do. So, lately I've been doing pretty well, making friends ... or, well, at least making a couple of the board members think I'm not a complete idiot, anyway." He rolled his eyes. "Long story short, enough board members think independent arbitration would be a fair thing that they might actually be able to force LaCaron to agree."

Bob blinked. Gerard started to speak again, but Bob held his hand up, silencing him. He scanned his brain for a memory that had just flown past. "So," he said, "Mikey and this LaCaron guy aren't exactly on any kind of good terms?"

"That's putting it mildly," Lindsey answered. "Mikey refuses to even speak directly to him. He makes his solicitor do all the talking."

Bob leaned forward. "Did Mikey tell you guys about the things he started to remember yesterday?"

"A little. I think I ended up talking more than I listened," Gerard admitted.

"He told me a few," Bob said. His nerves started rattling underneath his skin; he bounced his knees to release some energy. "He talked about meeting that solicitor guy - LaCaron - in his rooms."

Both Gerard and Lindsey stared at him. "Are you sure that's what he said? He remembered that?" Lindsey asked.

"Yeah. He specifically said he remembered meeting him in his - Mikey's - private rooms."

Lindsey stood up. She was across the room before Bob could rise to his feet, punching buttons on the computer console built into the far wall. "What are you doing?" Gerard asked, joining her.

"Finding LaCaron's communicator."

A moment later, she cursed and started running towards the lift. Bob and Gerard started after her. "What?" Bob asked.

"He's in Mikey's rooms."

There was no conversation after that. Bob simply followed Lindsey's lead through corridors and rooms, his mind purposefully blank.

  
The doors to Mikey's rooms didn't respond to Lindsey's codes. Gerard pushed her aside. "Let me try."

"My codes have the same clearance as yours," she said. "They should override any locks in the whole place." While Gerard frantically punched buttons, Lindsey pulled out her pulse gun and programmed the settings. "Get out of the way, Gerard."

When Gerard didn't stop, Bob pulled him aside, hard enough that Gerard stumbled into him. Bob held onto him and pulled them both a safe distance away as Lindsey aimed at the console. A moment later, the wall lit up with sparks bright and hot enough to sting the skin on Bob's arms and face. Gerard must have felt the same jolt, but he didn't show it; he wrenched himself out of Bob's grasp and ran for the door. Lindsey was attempting to push the sliding doors apart. Bob moved in to help her. It took a long, heart-stopping minute before the doors slid open just far enough to allow Gerard to squeeze through. Lindsey followed. The space was technically too small for Bob to fit through, but he gave one door a gigantic shove, and created enough of a gap that he could slide through sideways.

Inside, he found chaos. Mikey lay unconscious on his bed, a trio of syringes abandoned next to him. Lindsey held her pulse gun trained on a man - the solicitor, LaCaron, Bob recognized - crouched over Gerard, who was on his knees, groaning. A moment later, Gerard collapsed and went still. "Stand and put your hands up," Lindsey said, her voice cold.

"If you don't put that gun down," LaCaron replied, "I'll use this on him." Bob saw he held another syringe in his hand.

"You do, and you die." Lindsey reached up to change the setting on her gun without taking her eyes off LaCaron. Bob saw the pulse gun flash to the green setting - the highest discharge possible.

"So will he. And so will you, because they'll execute you in a heartbeat." LaCaron noticed Bob lurking in the background and waved the syringe. "And if you move any closer, I'll do it."

"What do you plan to do?" Lindsey asked. "You'll never make it out of here."

"What do you think is going to happen, when both Way brothers turn up dead, and it's my word against yours and a stranger's? I can tell the board your friend back there engineered the whole thing. I wouldn't even have to make you look guilty - they're all looking for a good excuse to get rid of you anyway. You fail to do your job and keep them alive, and you're gone. Literally and figuratively."

Lindsey's grip on the gun didn't waver; Bob couldn't see her face, but he saw her back straighten minutely. He looked over at LaCaron and Gerard - Gerard still lay on his side, but his head was turned just enough that Bob could see his open eye staring out. Curious, Bob shifted slightly, and the movement drew Gerard's eye up to him. LaCaron continued to stare at the gun pointed in his face. Bob raised his eyebrows slightly. Gerard stared for a minute, then closed his eyes. Bob didn't know what that meant, but he had to try something. "So," he said, his voice sounding too loud in the room, "don't you think someone will have heard the gun?"

LaCaron snorted. "These are the family quarters. Anyone who might have been close enough to hear is already in this room."

"What do you get, then?" Bob asked. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Gerard blinking, his chest rising and falling in a slow, even rhythm. "You kill everybody, make them think I did it, then what?"

"Legally, I'm the next in line to run the Way corporation until one of these two has a child." LaCaron held the syringe close to Gerard's neck. "Do you know how long it's been since a Lane corporation changed family hands?"

Suddenly, everyone was moving. Gerard pushed up from the floor and rolled backward into LaCaron, knocking him off-balance. The syringe he held went skidding across the floor. Lindsey rushed forward, but LaCaron recovered his balance in enough time to grab the barrel of her pulse gun. He pulled Lindsey down onto the floor. She kicked him in the side as she went down, causing him to tumble along with her. They struggled over the gun. Gerard tried to enter the fray, but he was knocked backwards immediately. Meanwhile, Bob retrieved the syringe and dove over to where LaCaron had managed to pin Lindsey to the floor. Bob held the syringe to LaCaron's throat. "You move again," he growled, "and I get to see what this does to you."

LaCaron froze for a moment. It was enough time for Lindsey to regain control of the gun and jab it between his ribs. "Get him off of me, will you?" she panted. Bob grabbed him around the middle and hauled him up. Lindsey stood up and, while jamming the gun barrel up against LaCaron's jaw, pulled a communicator out of her pocket. "Guards to family quarters. Now." She glanced at the bed. "And medical. Hurry."

When she flipped it closed, Bob looked at her. "Can I?" he asked.

She studied his face for a moment, then nodded. "Whatever you do, don't kill him. I've got plans for him."

Without any further warning, Bob drove the man's head into the nearest wall. He slumped to the floor, unconscious. Lindsey didn't react, except to roll him onto his stomach and grab a pair of pants from the floor and tie his wrists together. "Thank the Lady that Mikey's a slob," she muttered.

At his name, Bob immediately whirled towards the bed. Gerard leaned over his brother, listening to his chest. "He's breathing," Gerard said, voice breaking, "but just barely. I don't know what he did, I don't know what's in these things ..."

Bob rushed over and looked at the syringes. One was empty, another was partially empty. Mikey's skin was white, too white, and when Bob put his fingers to his throat, his pulse was weak. "Fuck." Bob whispered.

"Medical's coming," Lindsey said, coming up behind them and gently pulling Gerard up to a sitting position. "They'll fix it. They'll fix it," she repeated, her voice more pleading then sure.

At that moment, a crowd of people rushed through the door, and Bob found himself shoved backward into a corner of the room.. He watched as a team of men and women dressed in white lifted Mikey onto a gurney and rolled him away. Gerard accompanied him, while another medical tech bagged the syringes on the bed. Lindsey was giving orders to the guards who took control of LaCaron, while one lone white-suited woman checked his vital signs. Bob watched until everyone else had left the room, and then he slid to the floor. He put his head between his knees and sat there until he stopped shaking.

  
Bob got the story in pieces over the next few days. From Ray, he learned that a thorough sweep of LaCaron's computers showed that he'd been in contact with some key members of the Cyrus board of directors. "He wiped the actual communcations," Ray said, "but just being able to tell our board that he'd talked to them gave us enough."

"Cyrus would get Porzia," Lindsey explained later, as they sat in her office, "and LaCaron would get a Lane corporation. He didn't intend to kill Gerard - not before we busted in on him - he just wanted to undermine him enough that the board would vote to remove him as CEO. It's unprecedented, but technically, it could happen." She shrugged. "I don't know. I'm just glad it didn't get that far."

In the days after the attack, several board members had tried to pin some of the blame on Lindsey - or Bob, depending on what story they'd decided was the truth - but any attempts to contradict Lindsey's official report were met with a stone wall from the guard unit. "We trust the Chief," Bob heard one of them say, when questioned by a person Bob didn't recognize. "We don't trust corporate jackasses." And that was that, as the Way compound guard unit was the only legal authority in the main Nariall settlement.

By the time full long-range communication had been restored, no one from either Cyrus or Apex would answer anyone's messages. Bob didn't care too much about the politics, though. All boards of directors and solicitors and corporate assholes could go hang, as far as he was concerned. He really only cared about Mikey.

Either Gerard or Bob stayed at his side at all times. After a day, the doctor gave up trying to get either of them to leave. "Just as long as you eat and sleep enough to stay out of my care yourself," he said, throwing his hands up, "I don't care what you do." Bob would sleep for a few hours at a time, until Lindsey or Ray knocked on his door. He would follow them to the medical lab, and he'd take the chair they made Gerard vacate. He stayed until the cycle was reversed hours later.

Mikey stayed unconscious for several days. Per the doctor, the only thing LaCaron had injected him with was more of the memory loss drug - "It's lucky you got there when you did, though," he said grimly. "Because that other syringe, the one he had in his hand? That would have killed him." He refused to tell them what was in it. "It's better if you don't know." The amount of drug Mikey had received, however, had been nearly enough to do the job itself. "I can't tell you what he'll be like when he wakes," the doctor warned them. "I've never seen anyone get that much drug before."

Bob spent most of his time sitting next to Mikey's bed, working on business accounting that Brian had sent him. "I had to go make your run," Brian complained, when Bob finally got in touch with him. "So you can pay me back by doing some of my desk work." It sounded like a punishment, but Brian didn't mention the fact that he'd taken two more runs in order to give Bob the time to stay on Nariall, and Bob didn't mention that Jamia had told him about it. He just ran the numbers that Brian sent him, and marveled at how well Brian negotiated contracts and juggled finances in order to give all four of them a nice cushion of income. He resolved to dig into his savings and buy Brian a bottle of Sevens to thank him.

He was frowning at a particularly weird contract when he heard a small noise come from the bed next to him. Bob immediately put the palm unit down and stood up. Mikey's eyelids fluttered, and he groaned softly as consciousness came back. "Mikey?" Bob said, waving at one of the passing techs. "Mikey, can you hear me?"

Mikey opened his eyes. He looked unfocused and exhausted. He didn't say anything at first, just stared at Bob until a tech came over to check his vital signs. "Where am I?" he rasped.

"You're in the medical lab. You've been here for a few days."

"What happened?"

"It's a long story," Bob said, smoothing a lock of hair off of Mikey's face. "Just rest, we'll tell you all about it when you feel up to it."

Mikey blinked. "Who are you?"

Bob withdrew his hand. The tech turned Mikey's face to the other side of the bed in order to flash a light in his eyes. When Mikey turned back, Bob had swallowed everything and was able to say calmly, "I'm a friend."

He remembered Gerard, for which Bob, Lindsey, and Ray were all grateful. Dr. Hoppus came up to Gerard's rooms that night to share a bottle of Mirsian wine with them. "It sounds like he's remembering things from his childhood," he said. "The latest memory we can get out of him is from when he was fifteen. Hopefully, he'll keep remembering more as time goes on."

"Hopefully?" Gerard said, frowning.

The doctor shrugged. "Like I said, the amount of drug he was given is unprecedented. Quite frankly, I think you should be celebrating the fact that he woke up at all."

The next day, he remembered Ray. Which, Gerard pointed out, wasn't that much progress. "Ray and I met when we were nineteen. Mikey was sixteen."

Bob went back to see Mikey in the medical lab the next day. He was frowning at another tech who was examining him. "When do I get to leave? I'm fine."

"You're not fine," Bob said, sitting down next to the bed. "Let the people do their jobs."

Mikey turned the frown on him. "I still don't know who you are, so you can't tell me what to do." The voice was that of a petulant teenager.

Bob ignored the twist in his stomach and simply stared at Mikey. Finally, Mikey laid back and was silent while the tech finished her work. When she walked away, Mikey continued to stare at the ceiling. "Gerard says you saved me," he said after a few minutes of silence.

"I wasn't the only one."

"I don't remember." Mikey turned his head. "Gerard says all this stuff happened, that I was kidnapped and you saved me and we flew all over the galaxy, and I don't remember any of it. I can't even believe half of it."

"It's pretty unbelievable," Bob agreed. "But it all happened. I was there."

"Huh." Mikey looked back at the ceiling. "Thanks, I guess."

"You're welcome, I guess."

Mikey closed his eyes. "Sorry. I'm sorry. I don't ever know what to say."

"It's okay." Bob stood up. He reached over to ruffle Mikey's hair, but froze when Mikey turned panicked eyes on him. "It's okay," he repeated, withdrawing his hand. "I'm going to go. I just wanted to make sure you were doing all right."

"Thanks," Mikey whispered. He squeezed his eyes closed. Bob looked down to see that his hands were fisted into tight balls, holding the bedsheets in a death grip.

Bob only looked at him for a moment. Then, he walked out.

  
Lindsey sat in Bob's cockpit as he prepared for takeoff. "You're sure you can't stay for a little while longer?"

"I've let my boss do my job long enough." He keyed the sequences that would get him back to Cobra into the computer. "And I really need to get Victoria's ship back to her."

"He'll remember you eventually, you know." When Bob turned to glare at her, Lindsey just spread her palms wide. "He woke up this morning thinking that he was still dating Pete. He's getting there."

"I know." Bob turned back around so she wouldn't see him sigh. "He's going to be fine. He's home with his family, and he's getting good care. I don't need to sit around in everyone's way."

"Bullshit." Bob scowled at the computer, but Lindsey stood up and walked over to him. He could feel her presence at his back. "I bet I'll see you again."

"Maybe. Gerard wanted to give me a whole lot of crap, money and stuff." He made a face. "I talked him down to just giving Brian the contract to run cargo for most of the Way planets. So I may fly in here sometime."

"That's not what I mean." She smiled when he turned to face her. The expression was gentler than any he'd seen on her yet. "Take care of yourself, Bryar."

When she was gone, the cockpit felt strangely empty. Bob programmed music to play loudly throughout the ship as he took off. It almost covered the silence.

When Bob arrived on Janpur, he was surprised to find Brian, Frank, and Jamia all waiting for him. Brian waved a palm unit in the air as soon as he saw Bob. "Porzia! The Way corporation is giving us the motherfucking Porzia run!" he crowed. "Holy shit, I'm going to need to hire more pilots."

Bob didn't respond. Jamia took one look at him and crossed the room; she wrapped her arms around his middle and laid her head on his shoulder. Bob returned the embrace, kissing her lightly on the top of her head. "I'm okay."

"Sure you are," she said.

"Come on," Frank said, jerking a thumb at the door to the back room of the office, which was home to their makeshift lounge. "There are at least four bottles of alcohol back there with your name on them."

"That's the best thing I've heard in days." Bob allowed Jamia to lead him halfway across the room, but he stopped at Brian's chair, as he was standing up to join them. "Hey, got something for you."

Brian raised his eyebrows. They climbed even further when Bob pulled a bottle of Sevens out of his bag. "What the fuck ..."

"Got it from Gabe. It's for putting up with us being idiots all the time."

"Huh." Brian grinned. "Better idiots than assholes, really." He punched Bob lightly in the arm, then held up the bottle to inspect it. "I think your return deserves a toast, don't you?"

"Yeah, maybe." When Brian looked at him, Bob shrugged. "You know, I'm going to get really drunk tonight, and then I'm going to try to forget the last couple of weeks ever happened."

"Well, then, let's go get you wasted."

Bob eventually passed out on the floor. He didn't even mind waking up with a splitting headache, or finding video of him snoring like an engine installed on every monitor in his ship, because he slept for the first time in what seemed like forever without dreaming about Mikey.

Weeks passed. Bob's life returned to its normal routine; he picked up cargo, he shipped it somewhere else, he got paid. Occasionally, he met up with Frank and Jamia to drink and exchange stories about the stupidest clients they'd run up against. Brian hired a new ship - Bob hadn't yet met the trio who few the ship, but according to Frank, they were tiny ridiculous children who were too young to shave, much less fly a ship, and all had the same name besides. "It's creepy," Frank said, shuddering. "I think they're all robots." Bob, for his part, was reserving judgement until he met the kids.

One day, after Bob had finished a rhenium run from Porzia to a planet in the central corridor of the Beckett lanes, Brian called him back to Janpur. "I need you back here for a project," he said. "I'm sending the Alexes to make Cobra's run."

"Are you sure it's a good idea to send those kids to Gabe?" Bob asked, dubious. "And are they really all named Alex?"

"Honest to god. It's the strangest fucking thing." Brian shrugged one shoulder. "And they'll be fine. If they can't come out of Cobra in some kind of professional manner, they don't deserve to have the job. Come on back, I've got something here you have to see."

When Bob flew into his usual bay on Janpur, he noticed a small ship docked in the bay next door, the spot usually reserved for Frank and Jamia. It didn't belong to anyone he knew, at least anyone he could think of off the top of his head. "Huh," Bob said, then promptly forgot about it as he walked to the building that housed Brian's offices. The main room was strangely empty for being the middle of the work day - usually, Brian would be sitting at his desk, ignoring the window that looked out over the ship bays in favor of yelling at someone on the phone who hadn't offered to pay him enough money for their services. "Must be lunch time," he mused aloud, pulling his palm unit out. He absently started to key in his mileage stats from the last trip. "Hope he brings me back something, because I'm starving."

"I was told there were sandwiches in the back room," a voice said from the doorway on the other side of the room, startling Bob enough that he dropped his palm unit. "Or, more accurately, he said 'go help your own damned self, I'm not a butler.'"

Bob whirled around. Mikey stood across the room, looking far more human than he had the last time Bob had seen him. "What the hell are you doing here?"

Mikey shrugged. "Looking for you. I remembered a lot of things after you left, but unfortunately, the transmission frequencies of your ship weren't any of them, so I couldn't call you."

"How are ... I mean ..." Bob rubbed his eyes. When he opened them again, Mikey was still there. "You remembered everything?"

"Yeah. Took a week or so, but it all came back. Even the stuff that happened while I was drugged." Mikely leaned against the door frame and frowned. "You left. You left without saying anything."

Bob sank down into Brian's chair. "You weren't exactly in a position to notice. Or care."

"Fuck off."

Mikey's glare made Bob want to sink lower in his seat. He stayed upright, though, and didn't look away. "You weren't. I just thought it'd be easier for you if you just had to deal with your family. I was in the way."

"Seriously, fuck off."

"What? What do you want from me, Mikey?"

"Was it just a rescue mission, then? Save the poor bastard, get him home, then sail off to be a hero to someone else? Is that what you do?" Mikey's face twisted into an unpleasant expression, and he turned his head away from Bob. "I was so fucking scared back there, Bob. On Genara. Like, I was pretty sure I was going to die. And then you were suddenly there, and I just trusted you because I didn't know what else to do. I don't know what happened, but somewhere in the middle of the whole stupid mess, I started to feel like I belonged somewhere, and that's what got me through. I ... I was somebody when I was with you, even if I didn't know who the hell I was. But then I got home, and I got my memory back ... and you know what? I still liked the person I was when I was with you better than the one I remembered." Mikey heaved a large sigh, his slight frame shaking with the motion "I should thank you. I know I need to thank you, because you did a whole lot of things you didn't have to do to get me home in one piece. But, I just want ... I thought ..."

"What?" Bob reminded himself to breathe.

Mikey continued to look away for a few seconds, before slowly turning and meeting Bob's eyes. "You know what you said ... that night? How you didn't want me to do anything I'd regret when I could remember things?" Mikey closed his eyes and took a deep breath before looking back at Bob. "I don't regret a damned thing. I just want to know if you do."

"Fuck, Mikey." Bob leaned forward in his chair and hung his head for a moment. He listened to the sound of his pulse pounding in his ears for a moment before sitting back up and looking at Mikey again. "You can't mean what I think you mean."

"Why not?"

"Because ..." Bob pinched the bridge of his nose. "Because you're from a goddamned Lane family. You are really fucking out of my league." As soon as he said it, Bob snapped his mouth closed and mentally cursed himself.

"Are you kidding me?" In an instant, Mikey had crossed the room. He leaned on the arms of the chair Bob sat in, boxing him in. Bob could feel Mikey's breath on his face, and his skin prickled. "I didn't know there were fucking leagues. Tell me, what am I supposed to want? Bored rich guys who have never had to work a day in their lives?" Suddenly, Mikey stepped back. "Of course, that's exactly who I am. I'm not that interesting, just a rich kid dumb enough to get himself kidnapped."

"That's not true. Come on ..." Bob stood up and circled around Mikey. Mikey turned with him, watching him warily. "You're really fucking amazing, okay? No rich kid I've ever met would have ever been as brave as you were. You're a great guy with a great family and the ability to do anything in the galaxy that you'd ever want to do, and what am I? I'm a pilot who spent three of the last five days hauling nasty-smelling containers of mineral across a spaceport that didn't even have any transport carts. That's my life. How the hell do you think our lives would ever fit together?"

"I'd work with you." At Mikey's statement, Bob stopped. Mikey raised his chin defiantly. "You could use someone to fly with you. I know you're one of the only people around who flies solo, Brian told me. And I'm not afraid to work. Just because I haven't had to do it doesn't mean I can't."

Bob stared at Mikey for a long time, long enough that Mikey started to shift from one foot to the other, his defiant expression mingling slightly with nervousness. Finally, Bob put his hands in his hair. "You're crazy, you know that? Certifiable."

"Yeah, probably. It's a family trait." The corners of Mikey's mouth tugged upwards. "Ask Lindsey to tell you the story of Gerard and the Cedaran civil war sometime."

"The Cedaran ..." Bob shook his head. "Never mind, stop distracting me. Let me get this straight. You came here to tell me that you want to come fly cargo with me?"

"That's not all I'm telling you, dumbass."

Bob made a rude gesture. "Shut up, I'm getting there. You want to live on a grungy ship and do manual labor and eat horrible food, all because you ... because you and I ..."

"Because I'm in love with you. Is that direct enough?"

Bob nodded slowly. "Crazy," he said. "Totally fucking crazy, that's what you are."

Mikey started to say something else, but Bob cut him off by grabbing him and pressing their mouths together. Their teeth collided, causing both of them to make awkward noises, but then Bob tangled his hands in Mikey's hair and slid his tongue into Mikey's mouth. The sound Mikey made at that was maybe the best sound Bob had ever heard.

Bob didn't notice when Brian came back in - didn't notice anything, in fact, until Brian threw an engine bolt at his head. "Ouch, motherfucker," Bob growled, pulling away from Mikey. "That hurt!"

"You know the rules. If Frank and Jamia aren't allowed to make out in my office, neither are you."

"I didn't know there were rules about kissing," Mikey grumbled.

"Brian's got rules about everything. Wait until you have to take your annual shift doing data entry." Bob turned to Brian. "Oh, yeah, by the way, meet your newest employee."

"Yeah, he already told me." Brian waved them off as he sat down at his desk and punched the buttons that brought his computer to life. "I've already got him listed on the roster."

Bob stared at Mikey, who shrugged. "I figured I'd get a head start on things."

"Arrogant jackass." But Bob laced his fingers with Mikey's and grinned at him.

"If you two don't get out of my office in the next five minutes, I'm putting you to work cataloguing the inventory from the Ieros' last run for spare parts."

Bob tugged Mikey out of the room before Brian could say another word. They ended up back on Bob's ship. For a while.

Bob forgot about lunch completely.

  
In a remote corner of space, the Cyrus family owned a colony that was home to a large factory that made ship engine parts. They enjoyed a steady, loyal workforce; the fact that their employees were loyal because they had no choice in the matter wasn't something anyone involved said too loudly. The factory operated smoothly until one day, when the factory managers started experiencing a strange loss of workers. None of the managers could explain it - one day, a worker reported to their 14-hour shift; the next, they were gone, and no one heard from them again. There was no pattern to the disappearances as far as they could tell. The managers didn't dare report the problem to the family - they valued their own jobs too much.

The people who worked in the colony's spaceport talked amongst each other about a ship that docked every so often - a nondescript cargo ship that they loaded with finished engine parts bound for destinations unknown. Somehow, they said, the disappearances of factory workers always seemed to coincide with this particular ship's schedule. When the factory managers thought to look at the spaceport's records in their search for a pattern, however, this particular ship's registry was nowhere to be found.

Rumor had it that one of the ship's pilots belonged to another Lane family. But rumors came and went, no one believed them too much. Every few weeks, two pilots arrived, and three bodies left. The spaceport manager cheerfully altered the ship's takeoff records in exchange for generous credit to be spent at the Cobra facility. The Cyrus family continued to lose employees, and none of their board members had any idea.

Business continued as usual.

~The End~


End file.
